When I turned 18, there was a casino about 2 hours away on a reservation that I could get into. We'd get paid on Friday night, head to the gas station near us that would cash a paycheck, pile into my crappy little Ford, then make the drive. We'd get there a little before midnight and everyone had their own game.
The second time we went, one of my friends was hypnotized by the craps table. There were 16 players standing around this sea of green, and every minute or so, you could hear them screaming at the top of their lungs like they just won a million dollars. On the way home that night, I taught him everything I learned from books I'd read about the different bets. "Smart" bets where the house edge was only 1.4%, all the way down to the risky ones where the house edge was over 10% (meaning that for every $100 wagered, you should expect to lose $10).
The next time we went, we hung around the table, trying to figure out the right way to bet. It seemed a little complicated, so we tried other games. At the end of the night, I had the last $10 and he asked if he could borrow it to go place a bet. I handed it over, then went to the bathroom in preparation for the ride home. When I finally found him again, he had a stack of chips in front of him. He had been gone for about 5 minutes and already turned $10 into a few hundred. Well, if you can turn 10 into 100, you can turn 100 into 1,000 just as easily. We left empty handed that night, but I'll never forget the rush.
I loved blackjack. I learned how to play at an early age from my uncle, who would always cheat and take my money. He'd say "I just taught you a very valuable lesson." He actually taught me two: 1) if you play against a casino, you may have a good night and win thousands of dollars, but if you keep going back, you'll eventually have nothing left. 2) My uncle was a scumbag who continually cheated and took my money, then told the family I was a poor sport and they couldn't understand why I hated doing anything with him. One of my earliest memories at the casino was running $100 at the blackjack table into $3000, which is more than I made in a month of bussing tables. I went home, paid my rent and blew the rest on useless things I can't even remember.
What does any of this have to do with $GME? Well I'm still chasing the same high as I was when I was 18. I don't go to the casino anymore, but I've got something even better on my computer. I bought $2k worth of weeklies on Jan 25. Before everything crashed, they were worth over $100k, more than enough to fix most of the problems I've caused in my life. BUT, I was still standing around that craps table. The roller had just made his 30th point in a row, $GME was on fire and couldn't possibly roll a 7! I put my 2k back in my pocket and shoved the rest on the pass line. A few minutes later, the croupier inevitably yells "7 out!" and just like that, I'm back to nothing.
Now I do what every moron around the table does. You reach back into your pocket, pull out the 2k and make a deal with your maker. "Just let it happen one more time. I won't be greedy THIS time and I'll stop when I hit 50k." I stop looking at the smart bets and start eyeing the center of the table, where hard ways are paying 10:1. Yeah, that'll be how I get back to 50k. A couple of those in a row and I can put a down payment on a house. 5 minutes later, I'm on my way out to the car and I feel like I've been punched in the gut. Again.
Every one of you in this subreddit is another person sitting at the casino. Everyone has their game. The people holding $GME stonks right now? You're playing baccarat. If you've never heard of it, it's what James Bond plays in the old movies. It's about the most boring thing you can do. Two hands are dealt and you're betting on which one wins before anything happens. There's no actual skill and it's the same thing as betting heads or tails, while losing 1% of your bet every time.
The people who cashed out and picked something else like $AMC or $BB? Those are the slot players. You had a big hit and now you're going to switch machines because the other ones are "due". You're looking for the exact same magic, thinking there was something smart in your play, when it was really just dumb luck in timing.
The people saying "If Daddy Elon or Cowboy Cuban gets in, we can trigger a squeeze!" You're the guy who spent too much money in the first 20 minutes of the trip and now you're begging everyone else for a loan.
Tldr: Nothing is happening with $GME. Stop saying "tomorrow is the day." Billionaires are not coming to bail you out. If institutional investors come in, they're waiting for this constant downhill slide to end at where the stock belongs, probably around $20. You can't trigger shit by holding. The HFs will outlast you.
Edit: Screenshots from the worst 40 minutes of my financial life https://imgur.com/a/MlTRJmx
Edit 2: JFC, some of you are takin WSB way too seriously. You should not be using reddit for DD. Also, this is not financial advice. Don't take financial advice from someone who tells you stories about chasing highs at casinos.
Edit 3: This is WSB, my dudes. I'm glad most of you were entertained by my story. For the few of you who got that worked up by a random stranger on the internet telling you that he's a degenerate, you may actually have a problem. https://www.ncpgambling.org/help-treatment/

mods please lmk if this violates the rules. i’m posting here because I write about the mob/casino and many relevant themes that are important elements of the Sopranos, in my opinion. I think they’re of the same medium and genre so wanted to post here. Hope that’s alright. Cheers! (11 min read) ————————————————————————
EDIT 2: TL;DR -
Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor.
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Every good filmmaker makes the same movie over and over again—Martin Scorsese is no different
Scorsese's Casino is a phenomenal story of the condoned chaos and "legalized robbery" that happens on a daily basis to gamblers who bett away thousands of dollars and return each day for more “FinDom,” but without any of the sexual sadism. The whole scam only persists because the house always wins: the odds are stacked 3 million to one on the slot machines, but the same shmucks return wide-eyed each day hoping for a different outcome, devoid of any rational re-evaluation required to maintain their grasp on reality, and the liquidity of their bank accounts.
Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor.
Robert De Niro plays Sam "Ace" Rothstein, recruited by his childhood friend Nick "Nicky" Santorno to help run the Tangiers casino, which is funded by an investment made with the Teamsters’ pension fund. Ace’s job is to keep the bottom line flowing so that the Mafia's skimming operation can continue seamlessly. De Niro's character felt like half-way between Travis from Taxi Driver (of course, nowhere as mentally disturbed) and half of the addictive excess, greed, and eccentric business-mind of Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street.
Ace’s attention to detail gives him a rain-man-esque sensibility; his ability to see every scam, trick, hand signal, and maneuver happening on the casino floor make him the perfect manager of the casino, and take his managerial style to authoritarian heights in his pursuit of order and control over what is an inherently unstable and dynamic scheme; betting, hedging outcomes, and walking the line to keep the money flowing and the gamblers coming back. I’m not claiming Ace is autistic, I'm no clinician, but his managerial sensibilities over the daily operations of the casino, from the dealers to the pit bosses, to the shift managers, are to the point of disturbing precision, he has eyes everywhere, and knows how to remove belligerent customers with class and professionalism, but ultimately is short sighted in “reading” the human beings he is in relationship with. Ace is frustratingly naive and gullible in his partnership with Nicky and the threat he poses to him, and in his marriage with Ginger.
Ace has no personal aspirations to extract millions of dollars for himself out of the casino corruption venture. Ace simply wants the casino to operate as efficiently as possible, and he has no qualms about being a pawn of the bosses. While Sam, “the Golden Jew”—as he is called—is the real CEO of the whole enterprise, directing things at Tangiers for the benefit of the bosses “back home.” Ace’s compliance is juxtaposed with Nicky’s outrage upon feeling used: he gripes about how he is in “the trenches” while the bosses sit back and do nothing. Note that none of the activity Nicky engages in outside of the casino—doing the work of “taking Las Vegas over”—is authorized by the bosses. Ultimately Nicky’s inability to exert control over his crew and the street lead to his demise.
In the end, capitalism, and all that happens in the confines of the casino, is nothing but “organized violence.” Sound familiar? The mob has a capitalist structure in its organization and hierarchy: muscle men collect and send money back to the bosses who do not labor tirelessly “in the trenches.” The labor of the collectors is exploited to create the profits of their bosses. The entire business-model of the Mafia is predicated on usury and debtors defaulting on loans for which the repayment is only guaranteed by the threat of violence. But this dynamic is not without its internal contradictions and tensions, as seen in Casino.
In a comedic turn, the skimmers get skimmed! The bosses begin to notice the thinning of the envelopes and lighter and lighter suitcases being brought from the casino to Kansas City, “back home”. The situation continues to spin out of control, but a mid-tier mafioso articulates the careful balance required for the skimming operation to carry on: to keep the skimming operation functioning, the skimmers need to be kept loyal and happy. It’s a price the bosses have to pay to maintain the operation, “leakage” in their terms. Ace’s efficient management and precision in maintaining order within Tangiers is crucial for the money to keep flowing. But Ace’s control over the casino slips more and more as the movie progresses. We see this as the direct result of Nicky’s ascendance as mob kingpin in Vegas, the chaos he creates cannot be contained and disrupts the profits and delicate dynamics that keep the scam running.
Of course I can’t help myself here! We should view Scorsese’s discography, and the many portrayals of capitalist excess not as celebratory fetishization, but a critique of the greed and violence he so masterfully captures on film. See the Wolf of Wall Street for its tale of money as the most dangerous drug of them all, and the alienation—social and political—showcased in Taxi Driver. Scorsese uses the mob as a foil to the casino to attack the supposed monopoly the casino holds on legitimate, legal economic activity that rests on institutionalized theft. When juxtaposed with the logic of organized crime, we begin to see that the two—Ace and Nick—are not so different after all.
The only dividing line between the casino and organized crime is the law. Vegas is a lawless town yes, “the Wild West” as Nicky puts it, but there are laws in Vegas. The corruption of the political establishment and ruling elites is demonstrated when they pressure Ace to re-hire an incompetent employee who he fired for his complicity in a cheating scam or his stupidity in letting the slot machines get rigged; nepotism breeds mediocrity. In the end, Ace’s fall is the result of the rent-seeking behavior that the Vegas ruling class wields to influence the gaming board to not even permit Ace a fair hearing for his gaming license, which would’ve given him the lawful authority to officially run Tangiers. The elites use the political apparatus of the State to resist the new gang in town, the warring faction of mob-affiliated casino capitalists. While the mob’s only weapon to employ is that of violence. The mafia is still subservient to the powers that be within the political and economic establishment of Vegas, and they’re told “this is not your town.”
I’d like to make the most salient claim of this entire review now. Casino is a western film. The frontier of the Wild West is Vegas in this case, where the disorder of the mob wreaks havoc on, an until then, an “untapped market.” The investment scheme that the Teamsters pension fund is exploited for as seed capital, is an attempt to remain in the confines of the law while extracting as much value as possible through illegal and corrupt means for the capitalist class of the mob (and the ultimately dispensable union president). Tangiers exists in the liminal space of condoned economic activity as a legal and otherwise standard casino. While the violence required to maintain the operation, corrupts the legal legitimacy it never fully enjoyed from the beginning. This mirrors the bounty economy of the West and the out-sourcing of the law and the execution of the law, to bounty hunters. There is no real authority out in the frontier, the killer outlaw on the run is not so different from the bounty hunter who enjoys his livelihood by hunting down the killers. Yet, he himself is not the State. The wide-lens frame of Ace and Nicky meeting in the desert felt like a direct homage to the iconic image of the Western standoff. The conflict between Ace and Nick, the enforcer and the mastermind, is an approximation of the conflicts we might see in John Wayne’s films. The casino venture itself could be seen as an analogy of the frontier-venturism of railroad pioneers going to lay track to develop the West into a more industrial region.
I would have believed that this was a documentary about how the mob took over control of the Vegas casinos in the 1970-80s … if it were not for the viewer being expected to believe that Robert De Niro could play a Jew; it's hard to believe a man with that accent and the roles he’s played his entire career could be a “CRAZY JEW FUCK!!” I kid! But alas, De Niro is a class act and the last of the many greats of a bygone era. At times, it felt like Joe Pesci lacked talent as an actor, but his portrayal of the scummy, backstabbing bastard in Nicky was genuinely remarkable, but I might consider his performance the weak point of the movie. It’s weird to see a man that short, be that much of physical menace. There are a number of Sopranos actors in Casino. I’m sure Vincent Chase watched the movie and said to himself, “bet, i’ll cast half of these guys.”The set design and costumes were gorgeous. The styles and fashion of the time were spectacular. Scorsese’s signature gratuitous violence featured prominently, but tastefully. The camera work, tracking shots through the casino and spatial movement was incredible and I thought the cinematography was outstanding, the Western-esque wide lens in the desert was worthy of being a framed still.
The Nicky//Ace dynamic is excellent and the two play off of each other well. The conflict between the two of them escalates gradually, and then Nicky’s betrayal of Ace by cheating with Ginger marks the final break between the two of them. Nicky’s mob faculties represent a brutal, violent theft that is illegal and requires the enforcement of violence by organized crime. Despite the illegal embezzlement and corruption at play with the “skimming” operation at work at the casino, the general business model of the casino stands in contrast to the obscene violence of the loan sharks. Ace operates an intelligent operation of theft through the casino, and his hands-on management approach is instrumental to the success of the casino. Nicky’s chaos pervades the casino, and the life and activities of “the street” begin to bleed into Ace’s ability to maintain order in the casino. “Connected” types begin frequenting the casino, and Ace unknowingly forces one particularly rude gambler to leave the casino, who happens to have mob ties with Nicky. The “organized violence” of the casino cannot stay intact perfectly, because the very thing holding it together is the presence of the mob. Nicky is in Vegas as the enforcer and tasked with protecting Ace but his independent, entrepreneurial (shall we call them?) aspirations lead him to attempt to overtake what he realizes is a frontier for organized crime to brutalize and exploit the characters of “the street” (pimps, players, addicts, dealers, and prostitutes) and the owners of small private businesses.
Nicky is reckless, “when i plant my flag out here you won’t need your [casino/gaming] license” Nicky thinks he, and Ace, can bypass the regulations and bureaucratic legal measures by sheer force of violence alone. But ultimately Nicky is shortsighted and doesn’t have a real attachment to the success of the casino. After all, he isn’t getting profits from it (or much anyway) and isn’t permitted to play a real, active role in its daily functions because of his belligerent, untamed personality. Nicky has no buy-in that would motivate him to follow the rules or to work within the legal parts of the economy, it’s not the game he knows how to play, and win. All that he is loyal to, or deferent too, is the bosses back home; for whom he maintains absolute, uncompromising loyalty to, but still holds intense spite for.
And now to the more compelling element of the narrative. Sam “Ace” Rothstein is positioned as remarkably intelligent, he makes informed decisions that aid in his skill as a gambler, he can read people to determine whether he’s being conned, he has an attention to detail—aided by the casino’s surveillance apparatus which monitors cheating—that is almost unbelievable. Ace knows when he’s being cheated, he knows how to rig the game so that the house always wins, enacting psychological warfare to break down the confidence of would be proficient gamblers, who could threaten Tangiers’ bottom line. But in the end, the greatest gamble Ace makes is his marriage to Ginger. Ginger is the seductive, charismatic, and flirtatious madame who makes her money with tricks and her sexual power. Ginger works as a prostitute, seducing men, and extracting everything she can, almost as a sort of sexual-financial vampirism.
Ginger is the bad bet Ace can’t stop making even when she destroys his life, her own, and puts their daughter Amy in harm’s way. Ginger is the gamble Ace made wrong, but he keeps going back to her every time, trying to rationalize how she might change and be different the next time. Ace is not a victim to Ginger’s antics. Ginger makes it clear who she is: an addict, alcoholic, manic shopaholic who will use all of her powers to extract everything she can from everyone around her. She uses everyone to her advantage and manipulates men with her sexual power in exchange for their money and protection. Ginger had a price for her hand in marriage: $1 million in cash and $1 million worth of jewelry that are left to her and her alone as a sort of emergency fund.
Ace’s numerous attempts to buy Ginger’s love—and the clear fact that no matter how expensive the fur coat and how grand the mansion, none of it would ever be enough to satisfy her—mirrored Jordan Belfort’s relationship with Naomi in The Wolf of Wall Street. Both relationships carried the same manic volatility and conflict over child custody was found in both films, with the roles reversed in the respective films. Ginger may be irredeemable and a pathological liar, but Ace can’t claim that she wasn’t clear with him; when he asked her to marry him, Ginger said she didn’t love Ace. Ace replied that love could be “developed” but required a foundation of trust to develop. That trust was never there to begin with. The love was doomed from the start to destroy the two of them; two addicts, two gamblers, lying on a daily basis to one another and themselves about reality to justify their respective existences, the marriage, and Ace’s livelihood. And as Ginger pointed out, “I should have never married him. He’s a gemini, a triple gemini … a snake” Maybe astrology has some truth to it after all.
Now I’m not licensed (but hey neither was Ace, and he ran a casino empire!), but Ginger has the inklings of a borderline personality: her manic depression, narcissism, drug and alcohol abuse, and constant begging for forgiveness all seem indications of a larger psychological disorder at play. In the end, Ginger runs away with all the money Ace left her and finds her people in Los Angeles, the pimps, whores, and addicts she fits in with, in turn exploit and kill her for 3 grand in mint coins by giving her a ‘hot’ dose.
Overall, Casino is an incredible cinematic experience. I highly recommend watching this and seeing it as part of Scorsese's anthology of commentary on our economic system and its human victims. I’d argue that Casino, Wolf of Wall Street, and The Irishman all fit together nicely into a trilogy of the Scorsesean history of finance and corruption from the 70s to the 90s.
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EDIT 2: TL;DR —
Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor.

Hold. Do not sell unless you were foolish and put in your rent or bill money. If you are a buyer's remorse individual, just take a step back from stocks. Do research. Think before pushing the buy button, and think even more when pushing the sell button. Do not treat the stock market like a casino, and AMC like a slot machine; with that attitude, you are going to sell when you see a dip out of irrational fear. Your stinking thinking is wrong. Look at it like a savings account, that if it did not in the short term provide you a profit, will in the long run be beneficial for you. If AMC is not a stock that you would want to hold long term, just don't buy. We need patience. We need strategy. We need to hold. If you sell, you did not save your money, you gave up your money, and lost. If you hold, you are going to win. Think savings account, and not scratch off ticket.

TL;DR - I use the craft beer industry as a way to understand Capitalist Propaganda, how Capitalism and Socialism are inextricably linked to each other, and how through the use of propaganda, companies use the "illusion of choice" to coerce you into believing that you prefer the products that are most favorable to them. In order to change this into the consumer's favor, you need to be an informed consumer in the free market, and raise class consciousness to overthrow the tyranny of Capitalist Propaganda, that is called "Marketing".
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You can't understand Capitalist Propaganda unless you have a solid understanding of what Capitalism is beyond the literal definition of the word, which is just an abstract ideal. Propaganda plays off of the discrepancies between the ideals of Capitalism, like the free market, which is another abstract ideal, and the reality of Capitalism in practice in America, which can be characterized as Trickle Down Economics. Capitalism sought to be a pragmatic alternative to its economic predecessors, a fact which drives Capitalist Propaganda. However, through layers of abstraction throughout the years, it has become more of a religion, as critics refer to the increasingly ideological concept as "Supply Side Jesus", meaning you give all the money to the rich, it'll trickle down to the poor, and they can "vote" on the actions of the capitalists through monetary interactions in the free market.
Capitalist Propaganda is engrained in America, because at the time of our founding, Adam Smith wrote "Wealth of Nations", which is considered the Bible of the Free Market. This groundbreaking work utilized Newton's Laws of Physics, which were en vogue at the time, to describe how interactions in the marketplace would balance each other out, just as the laws of Newtonian Physics do.
The very noble purpose of Wealth of Nations was not create the oligarchy we have today, but to do the opposite. He wanted to describe a system that would protect individual freedoms and be truly democratic. Just as Lenin and Stalin bastardized the works of Marx, so too have capitalists in America bastardized the intentions of Adam Smith.
Capitalism and Socialism are best learned side by side, in my opinion, to avoid falling into the trappings of either ideology that our brains like to do. Which one is better? It depends on the market, but the answer is almost always somewhere in between.
Through learning how Socialist concepts can be applied to problems in Capitalism, you can cut through the propaganda and will see for yourself that these problems can be solved if we just drop the labels and do what's best for society and the individual. The problem is always finding the proper balance.
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WHAT? CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM ARE JOINED AT THE HIP?
Yep. You can never live in a pure economic system. Purity is always an illusion. If you want something to be pure, you have to put a lot of energy into making it that way. Nature likes to mix stuff up. This is why ideologies around racial purity and fascism always fail. There are people who want a "pure" economic system, but they are usually the people at the top and would only get richer from more purity while the rest of society loses freedom and slowly starves.
In a nutshell, Capitalism promotes laws that benefit those with money, while Socialism promotes a safety net that benefits everyone. Every single human is born into Socialism. As a baby, you need food, someone else works for it and gives it to you, but then at some point, you are expected to exchange labor for capital, and buy your own food. See? The two are forever bound as the yin and yang. You can also grow your own food, but for that you need land, which is capital.
These interactions are very tricky. I only want to tell you enough so that you can start to see Capitalist Propaganda, because right now, you're like a fish in water that can't see water. I often use this line to describe a person who can't see their own homegrown propaganda. The best way I found to study Capitalism is by relating it Socialism, the "air" above the "water" of Capitalism, if that makes sense.
I always find it best to look at a microcosm to understand these concepts. And today, that microcosm is beer.
Mmmm....Beeeeeeeeeerrrrrrr.....
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CONFLICT OF INTEREST AND THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE
Before I poison your mind with my own propaganda, picture you're on vacation and you walk into a bar and want to order a beer. If you really want to understand the power of propaganda in your own life, really think of this before we break this all down. Really think, what makes you decide which beer to order? Do you like to look at the labels on the tap or bottle? That's obvious propaganda. It has absolutely nothing to do with the taste or quality of the beer itself, but sways your opinion toward logos you've seen before, which is why you see so many beer advertisements, which means that money that could've gone into quality is instead going into propaganda, and you're already biased towards an inferior product. Interesting. You really can't help being swayed by marketing, but at least you can be conscious of that fact, and that's important in order to be an informed consumer.
Do you ask the bartender for a recommendation? Why would you do that? You don't know the bartender any better than the beers in front of you. How do you know they aren't paid more to offer you a beer that sucks and is 12 years old and the owner wants to get rid of it? Do you ask for a certain style of beer? Do you ask for a local beer? And once you finally narrow it down to a few choices, do you ask for samples so you can make up your own mind? You should always do this. Then we get into "flavor propaganda", which we'll discuss later. Jeez. Did you every realize there was so much complexity behind being an informed consumer and just ordering a simple beer? Maybe you'll give in and just tell the bartender to pour whatever. Choice is difficult sometimes.
If you really visualize this and take a minute to let this sink in, you'll start to understand how external forces hijack the processor in your mind to manufacture desire through the illusion of choice. However, your health and enjoyment of the beer is not the goal for these external forces, they only want you to purchase. The perfect example is fast food. They know their product sucks, but they know you'll keep buying it, but that doesn't keep them from lying about how delicious it is in their ads. There is far more at play behind the curtain. There is a science behind addicting you to things, this is reinforced by a corporate tax and subsidy system that contorts the free market pushing centralization of production through homogenization and use of chemicals to hide the homogenization, and simply because there is more than one option, they make you feel like you have choice. This, in a nutshell, is how the illusion of choice works in the free market. It's not about what YOU want. The producer manipulates you to think you want what they have. Through this, they deceive Americans into buying products with a list of ingredients that a person would never freely choose to consume. So if you want to order a beer with no shit in it, then you're shit out of luck in America. You could in Germany, but we'll discuss that later.
While you're standing at that bar, you aren't conscious of the fact that your interests are in direct opposition to those of the bar owner's. Capitalists hide this fact with their perfect smiles, but Marx described this in detail. You want the best beer for the cheapest price, and the bar owner wants to sell you the cheapest beer at the highest price you'll pay. It doesn't stop there. The bar owner flips roles in the same situation with the beer distributor, who does the same with maybe another level of distribution, and continues to the brewer, then goes to the brewer versus supplier, supplier to farmer, and even though you'd think it stops there, the farmer has to deal with suppliers of equipment and seeds, and on and on.
Add to this list their auxiliary staff of HR, drivers, managers, brewers, bottle/keg makers, and of course owners, none of them care whether you actually like the beer you're drinking as long as you keep buying more. That's the big driver here.
Did you ever realize that every time you buy a beer, your own capital is partially responsible for creating and sustaining all of these jobs involved? You, my dear beer drinker, are the true job creator. Budweiser can brew all they want, it means nothing without buyers, who are the true engines of capitalism. Instead, you're treated as a rube by suits in a boardroom somewhere.
Capitalist Propaganda tells us the billionaires are job creators, but this is a lie. Jeff Bezos can't drink enough beer to sustain all these jobs. So why do we let him hoard all the money? Wouldn't the economy do better if we spread out Jeff's money so more people could buy more beers and more jobs would be created? According to Socialist Economics, yes. That's actually, quite simply, a Socialist Free Market. Did you even know that existed? The power hungry greedy people who are too lazy for manual labor go to such great lengths to make sure you don't learn it. They want you to think that only Capitalism allows you choice in the market. I'm sure you can guess why they say that.
Capitalism maintains itself by exulting the wealthy who use their economic power to punch down. The only way this system won't fall into fascism and fail is if the consumers start to punch back. Where Marx envisioned the Dictatorship of the Proletariat as they usurped power from the Bourgeoisie, a modern alternative is just teaching people to understand the system we live in, so that we can just start making changes in the way we live and to whom we give our money.
See that? Capitalism and Socialism can get along nicely, so long as the consumers are informed.
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CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE ALIENATION OF LABOR CAUSING LONELINESS IN SOCIETY
What I described within the previous section is what Marx called "Alienation of Labor". Each step in the process of making your beer is isolated from the others, so no one feels ownership over the end product or a true connection to the consumer, or job creator. Even the bartender selling it is alienated from the profit of their labor in serving the beer, so they only focus on the service aspect of giving you the beer, because that is where they earn their tip. They can't really fix anything about a shitty beer other than to offer you a different brand. The capitalist owner is usually not there. Their only interaction is setting the rules for everyone in the bar to follow, and pay themselves more than everyone who has to follow those rules. This is part of the conflict between the classes. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, I'm just pointing it out. The bar owner themself has to spend money on propaganda to attract customers that could be spent in other places, so has to find ways to cut costs. Unfortunately, they buy cheaper beer...and this is why you end up with IPAs. No one is connected to the products, so they only look at prices and find the cheapest, passable product. This is the race to the bottom of Capitalism.
Compare this to when brewpubs were a new thing. The brewer would come out and talk to you about the beer, you would give feedback that could effect future batches and it connected everyone to each other through commerce. It makes business "social" and I think nearly everyone enjoys that, but it is losing out in competition with chain breweries that enforce isolation and make cookie cutter propaganda and cookie cutter business models so they can turn owners into managers and suck all the profit back their corporate headquarters and offshore accounts. They kill the experience and make everything transactional. And all the kitsch they hang around their cookie cutter chain bar is just to hide the fact that no one in that place cares about anything other than not getting fired. Everyone is effectually alienated from everyone else. It's worth a read to check out this page on Marx's Theory of Alienation.
This alienation is the root of a lot of misery in society. Humans are communal animals forced to live in a society of individuality and alienation. As they mope around, they seek an escape. And that is why advertising is so nefarious. It seeks to manipulate you in that state. Imagine driving home from your alienating job to you empty home, but looking up and see a billboard with bunch of actors laughing and drinking beer. They take pictures that make these actors look like friends. It's just for show. They aren't selling beer to those laughing people in the picture. They're tempting lonely people to drown their sorrows. Capitalist Propaganda is used so your brain doesn't understand what it wants. It wants friends, then sees the words Bud Light. So when the bartenders asks...Make it a Bud Light. Look at how much money they spend to manipulate and capitalize on people's suffering.
Propaganda in Communist countries is controlled by the government, so it's clear who the enemy of your freedom is. Capitalist Propaganda hides behind the layers of complexity of the same economy you rely on to survive, so you never know what's propaganda or where it's coming from. Marketers find every way imaginable to get their disinformation in front of your eyes, even enlisting your friends on Facebook in annoying MLM schemes. Propaganda invaded everything that can be legally monetized. It's in the media, and not just commercials anymore. There's product placement, stories injected into the news, and even movies and social media created an entire industry of "lifestyle propaganda", telling you how to live your life and indulge in overconsumption. It's REALLY hard to get away from Capitalist Propaganda. There is so much money and research behind it and so much depth, even this long post is only barely scratching the surface. I just want to open your eyes to it.
I can't make you see all this. No one can. I can only describe it as best as I can. What you will experience when you understand this is what I call "Economic Enlightenment", similar to what Marx called "Class Consciousness". Once it happened to me, the world looked amazing, and the shitty propagandists selling us false hope all look like clowns in a very odd circus of vanity, despair and mediocrity.
Once I understood this, I saw clearly how we are increasingly trapped in a form of Corporate Slavery, led by seriously ridiculous oligarchs like Mark Zuckerberg, who thinks he's the reincarnation of Augustus Caesar or something. That's why he has that haircut! This is a guy who stole a company and hired "screen psychologists" from Las Vegas to get you hooked on Facebook the same as casinos do with slot machines. He wants to be the funnel for propaganda throughout the world. He wants to be the kingmaker, decide what people buy, who they like, what views they hold. He can only do this because so many companies spend so much money to put their propaganda on that platform. They can only have this much money because the free market is not actually free. It's bought and paid for on platforms like Facebook and Amazon. The money that was supposed to "trickle down" is instead being spent on Capitalist Propaganda on these platforms, to get the proletariate to trickle their money up through endless, nonsensical online purchasing and local businesses who send the town's money to people who can't do anything with it but buy up properties that increase your rent and cost of living.
When people get drunk on the power of propaganda, they forget the lessons of the past. Propagandists always fall prey to their own delusions over time. In reality, your life is better without Facebook. There isn't anything on there that is healthy. Even if you just want to talk to a few friends, you are going to fall for the propaganda there. You can't help it. And if your bar advertises on Facebook, just think, that money could've gone into purchasing higher quality beer then sold at the same price, instead of going to Mark Zuckerberg so he can drop $30 million to buy the houses around him so no one can spy on him while he spies on you. You really gotta watch out for a guy who combines spying and propaganda all into a single app and thinks he's going to bring 200 years of peace to America. History is littered with knuckleheads like that. It's best to get off Facebook and encourage everyone else to do the same. Zuck only wants to lead himself to the Promised Land, and he's using your ignorance to fuel his own delusions by deluding you into thinking you want what he has to offer.
Let's get back to beer.
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IPAs AND THE FREE MARKET VS THE RACE TO THE BOTTOM
I like beer. When I worked in Germany, it was easy to walk into a bar and, like Farva, just order a liter o' beer. Often, there would only be two choices, light color or dark. As a matter of fact, even at the most famous beer festival in the world, Oktoberfest, people mostly drink the same standard type of beer, and no one complains about the lack of choice. It's quite easy. You can order with one finger. No need to see a menu or ask what's in it. It's simply beer. This worked for centuries. Consumers are fine with it. Prost! Have you ever shared a story like this and people say, "Oh, that would never work in America. Americans want choice." Yeah. Because we are flooded with Capitalist Propaganda.
So if consumer choice isn't pushing for a selection, why would a free market call for it? Imagine there are two bars and one of those bars says "30 beers on tap" and the other doesn't. You're more likely to choose it, and the other bar will have to compete in some way, often by copying. This forms trends, and people mistake this for something customers wanted. Trends are always marketing. Don't believe me? What happened to fidget spinners? So now you have a bunch of beers that no one asked for, yet will now demand. Competition creates more Capitalist Propaganda to create demand for something you never even wanted, but makes you think you do. And that's the best propaganda. You think you are thinking for yourself. This is the fallacy of consumer choice.
If you want to understand just how important that last paragraph is, consider this, "consumer choice" is the same propaganda they used to get you to carry around a device that spies on you 24/7 and sends that data to people you don't know, and you can't stop it, can you? You chose that. You wanted it. Not only that, but you paid $1,000 for the device to opt into their spying program, for the privilege of being mind controlled by the propaganda their AI selects for you. Did you read the Terms of Service? As bad as you may have thought Communist Propaganda was, Capitalist Propaganda is far better, and far stealthier. You believe you have freedom of choice. But your only choice is usually take it, or leave it. Oh, you need it for work? Maybe find a different job. Or just succumb to mass surveillance, and next year, you can drop another grand on a device with a marginally better camera.
There is a way to free yourself. You just have to understand the nature of propaganda. It took me a while, but I eventually broke free. Under Socialism, there would be laws against the exploitation of consumers. Capitalist Propaganda tells you that this takes away your freedom. This is a lie. Regulations give you the freedom to not have to worry whether the beer you're drinking has poison in it.
Germany has a lot of regulations on beer. It has the Reinheitsgebot (purity order), a law passed in 1516 that states that beer can only consist of water, hops and barley. Note, this is a different use of the word "purity" from earlier, as beer is itself a mixture of things. Historically there have also been regulations where beer could only be sold regionally, so no matter what part of Germany you were in, you only got a certain brand of beer at the bar, but it didn't matter because they all had the same ingredients. They could make wheat beers or unfiltered, but they were generally variations of pilsners and lagers. One meaning of the word "Lager" in German is "storage", meaning the beer was brewed in a way that it could be stored, allowing them to brew in bigger batches and store it.
Lagers use a more complex brewing process, so only larger breweries would make them, but this worked because of protected territories. America has a similar system, because each state has its own regulations on alcohol, but this is changing as corporate lawyers fight to homogenize the rules favorable to them, but the consumer loses control. Big brands tend to be lagers as they have general appeal to a wide audience. Did you notice this is the second time I pointed out that corporations create homogeneity? Without regulations, corporations create Fascism. That is why I tell people that we already live in the NWO but corporations rule the world instead of governments. Why do you think so few conspiracy theorists make this connection? Propagandists are paid a lot of money to keep even our small community confused about the reality of what's happening. Now, check out conspiracy and you'll see what I mean. They are spreading propaganda for the NWO over there and don't even know it. I tried to point that out and they finally banned me. Oh well. They'll figure it out in their own time.
In America, in 1978 it became legal to brew beer at home. This is what led to the explosion of new beers in the US decades later. Americans don't have purity laws, so could test new recipes. But people didn't generally like IPAs before, so how did they become so popular that they control 30% of the market? Marketing, of course. Create the market and tell people what they want.
IPA stands for India Pale Ale. It was invented by the British as an easy way to make a beer that they could drink in India. People only drank it out of necessity, as the other beers couldn't make the trip. IPAs are very easy to make and very forgiving, because if you mess it up, it already tasted bad anyway. As people started trying to get into microbrews, they often didn't have the capital to make lagers at small scale, and also wanted a simpler process so they didn't have to hire or train expert brewers, IPAs are cheap and easy to make at smaller scale.
In order to make it drinkable, brewers experimented with many different flavorings. This created a cult following of craft IPAs, where people would drive hours to stand in line for hours to try the newest concoction. The trendy nature of the craft beer world kept people training their palate to adapt to the taste of an IPA, making people start to actually like them. The flavorings made people think they were different, so even if they didn't like it, marketing tactics kept people coming back to try the latest blend. Your palate can adapt A LOT. Swedish people love Surströmming, but watch this video of Americans trying it for the first time. They tried to get me to eat it several times, but I would rather sit in a sauna until Tuesday to avoid smelling it while watching them eat it. It really smells that bad.
IPAs enticed people with popular, aromatic ingredients like bananas and pineapple. This is what I call "flavor propaganda". It's not bad in and of itself, but it can be easily misused to cover issues with quality or hide the taste of preservatives. Since we don'e have laws like Germany, you're left to rely on the knowledge and honesty of the bartender to find out. They don't make this info readily available, which is another form of Disinformation.
So if you think you actually like IPAs, just remember, you are just like a Swede eating rotten fish. A lot of propaganda went in to making IPAs popular, but it's the cheapest, easiest product to make that can be sold at the highest price, so they become popular. This is what business students call a business plan. To overcome the bad taste, IPAs were marketed as "classy" to shame you if you choose the more expensive to produce and more appealing pilsners and lagers, which were given a bad name due to being associated with major brands like Bud Light. This makes it harder to market microbrew lagers, which can only fetch a certain price due to association. And this is what is referred to as the "race to the bottom" in Capitalism.
Instead of trying to innovate ways to produce the beers you want, they just figure out how to get you to pay more for an inferior product, just like they do with BBQ. They make you think you want it. From this you can understand why "food" is full of junk that you wouldn't feed your dog. Whatever legal poison helps cheapen the product is considered "smart business", another propaganda term designed to hide the reality of doing immoral and harmful things to other humans for profit. If you make money on it, it's good. As if there aren't better choices we could come up with if there truly were a free market with an informed consumer.
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STRENGTHEN THE FREE MARKET BY BEING AN INFORMED CONSUMER
We don't need a Communist Revolution to make positive changes, so take off your ski masks and put your Antifa flags down. I like microbrew culture and still enjoy IPAs, but understanding the marketplace is how I do my part as an informed consumer and job creator to help create the world that I want to live in. I encourage you to do the same. Vote with your dollars. Don't let the Zuck-type sociopathic, corporate people in a distant land decide what you consume by looking at ads on his platform. Visit local breweries and talk to the brewmaster. Don't reinforce alienation from labor. Connect with the people who make the things you buy. Support independent entrepreneurship. These are the paths to a brighter future where we share in the abundance of wealth.
Discover Economic Enlightenment for yourself and realize that We The People are ultimately in control. Wealth inequality is greater than it was in France before the French Revolution. Don't let this train take us into the depths where another Lenin will arise and spend the night shooting people.
How you choose to spend your money today is what decides what will become the society of tomorrow. And remember, you always have the choice to buy nothing at all. I never saw a billboard that said that.
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LET THEM DRINK BEER!
I hope this gave you a glimpse behind the curtain of Capitalist Propaganda. Propaganda isn't just political, it has invaded everything and it's at full blast right now. I hope you can piece together how Capitalist Propaganda is actually designed to make you subservient by controlling what you want so they can maximize their own profit and teach you to accept whatever they offer, the homogenization of choice. However, your life is your own and you should remain in control of all aspects of it, including your desires.
Richard Wolff is an economist who studied at three elite universities in America and discusses how he was not able to even learn about Socialist Economics in the ivory tower, even though Capitalist Propaganda calls universities leftist. He found no department in America that is even willing to teach it or study it. Capitalist Propaganda censors these ideas, especially at the university. People in power don't want the serfs to learn about themselves. Check him out on YouTube. You'll realize that unchecked Capitalism leads to Fascism and Slavery, which is why they want to get rid of the minimum wage, so that we can return to sharecropping which is already increasingly happening in America under different names, like "student debt", "mortgages" and "insurance". Don't you think it's odd that a person has to go into debt so they can generate profits for corporations who really ought to be paying for this education themselves? If you have to go into debt before they'll hire you, it's much easier to negotiate against you.
If you want to see other examples of propaganda, check out this random tweet from one of America's Top Capitalist Propagandists. These are very odd pictures, and the only thing I can see in them is that they must be promoting those outfits, likely the blue dress, maybe those men's outfits as well. One thing you know is that she didn't become a billionaire by letting any single opportunity to enrich herself at the expense of others pass her by. I didn't look it up, but I am certain they sell that blue dress, or whoever does paid her to post this.
That's the main reason celebrities use social media. It's marketing. Their whole schtick is to sell garments made in a sweatshop in a foreign country by people who can't even afford a beer to Americans who are facing bankruptcy and homelessness themselves.
Read the replies of the tweet. These people have influence that vastly outsizes their understanding of their impact on the world. There are guillotines in the comments. There usually are. I'm seeing them a lot lately.
This type of propaganda is everywhere. And it's destroying America. Just like propaganda led to the demise of Nazi Germany, we could be looking at the same thing, but worse. It could start off as famine.
If you're having trouble deciding between the beers you are being offered, it's probably because you don't want anything at all, in which case the proper choice is: nothing. Or, try tap water. Maybe you're just thirsty. Now ask yourself, when you envisioned yourself at a bar, did you ever think to order water instead? Did you entertain the idea that you didn't even want a beer. That's the power of suggestion.
What if the rest of the world just cut America off from the means of production outsourced to areas with cheap labor? We would have our own famine and likely war. And if we have a revolution here, with the masses in the country being so disinformed about everything and not having any sort of class consciousness at the moment and instead stuck in alienation, the leader that rises here will likely lead to something horrifying. And we censor ourselves from pointing out the simple fact, that the only way America will survive is to tax the deluded royalty like Kim and Mark back to reality, so they can't indulge their reckless, childish delusions by selling off the very fabric of our nation to the highest bidder.
That doesn't make me a Socialist, that just makes me honest.
Enjoy your beer!
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Thanks for reading and I hope I helped you understand how you can empower yourself. I'm excited about the one I wrote for Election Day tomorrow to keep our NOPOL spirits up while all the politics clouds the airwaves. Cheers!

Hi everyone,
This is my first post so bare with me. It may be long so don’t feel compelled to read it.
I am 26 years old and in the midst of the Pandemic, I have been working from home since March. Before September, I would never have thought of myself having a gambling addiction. I remember being on a cruise when I turned 21 and put $20 in a slot machine and lost it and was so angry and disappointed in myself.
Then in September I kept seeing this ad on Instagram for an online casino. One day I succumbed and decided to sign-up because they had a $30 signup offer. I thought, ‘Hey what’s the harm?’ I wish I could go back and slap myself and say don’t do it.
I play through the free $30 and won $500. My whole body felt electrified. That went away when I realized there were wagering requirements (I have never been in/involved with casinos so I had no idea). By the time I met the wagering requirement, I had $75 of withdrawalable money. Still excited I made $75 for free I went to withdrawal, but found out the minimum withdrawal amount is $100. So I kept playing and eventually lost it. I wish I learned my lesson that this will be the reality most of the time.
For a bit of background, before this I was in a decent financial state. Pretty good job for someone my age, lived alone in a nice apartment, had some credit card debt, but overall manageable. I have some mental health problems (Bipolar and anxiety disorders) but received treatment and relatively stable compared to my early 20s.
As the days went on I couldn’t stop thinking about seeing that ‘big win’ flashing on my screen and kept thinking to myself, ‘that $500 could have been mine if I didn’t have that $30 bonus’. So, I decided to deposit $20 and bet low on the same game and won nothing. I felt sick like I did on the cruise.
This particular online casino gives you $1 every day, so for the next week I just played but $1 and won some, but not enough to withdrawal. About a week later, I got an email from the casino saying if I deposit $50, I’ll get an extra $50 with no wagering requirement. The thought of depositing $50 was crazy to me so I just deleted the email and continued with my free $1 a day. After about a week of that, I get another email, deposit $50 play with $200. I scoured the fine print and I only had to play through the extra $150 once, then any winnings I can withdrawal. I still hesitated until Friday night where I had a couple drinks and decided to go for it. Back then, I would say this was one of the most fun nights of my life. I kept landing the ‘fireshot’ feature and winning mini and minor jackpots. At the end of the night I won $1200 USD (I’m from Canada so it would be about $1500 CAD).
My body was so full of excitement I could barely hit the withdrawal button. When I did, I found out they had to verify my account and I had to send in the required documents. After I researched if this was standard for online casinos and researching this casino, I sent in my documents. I went to bed happy, and already had plans on what I was going to buy/pay off with this win. Unfortunately I was too excited to sleep. So I log back in and miraculously (at least to me back then), my $1200 was still there, and playable. So I thought why not play a few more rounds with a higher bet to get an even bigger win? Big mistake. By 3:00am, I was down to $100. I forced myself to stop so I could still withdrawal something. After about a week or two, I resisted playing/betting more and when I logged into my online banking and saw the $120 deposited, I think that’s when my addiction started.
I was no longer satisfied with my free $1 everyday. I started just depositing $20 here and there. On my lunch break or in the evening when I was bored. Then $20 turned into $50 and $50 to $100. After maxing my credit card with no significant wins, I decided enough was enough. And stopped for the rest of September.
Most likely because I had researched so much about online casinos, I had more ads than ever tempting me. One night again after a few drinks, I joined a different online casino. This one was completely different, with better games, a level up feature where you get to spin a wheel after each level and win free spins, cash back or free money, I was hooked again. I put in $50 and lost and was completely broke. So I patiently counted down the days until I got paid. I also sold about $500 worth of video games/consoles I didn’t want to sell, but did to have more money to gamble with.
On payday, I set an alarm for 4:00am when my pay is deposited. This was the first real sign to myself I may be becoming obsessed, but brushed it off. I deposited $100 and won $200. Same story, I had to verify my account but this was done within hours, and I got my money in two days VS a week and a half with my first casino. Stupidly, I put the $200 back in and lost it. I was back to being broke after only two days of getting paid. By the weekend, my credit card payment posted and in my eyes, I had money again.
That night I won most of what I lost back and learned my lesson and withdrew it. When I saw that sum deposited into my bank account, I was ecstatic. I first paid off my credit card I was using to make the deposits, and went out and bought AirPods Pro. I felt rich (even though the win was less than $1000). That evening I wanted to play again, but I had no money. This was the night I learned I could cancel a bill payment within 24 hours. Which I did. And played through all my winnings. Words can’t describe how disappointed I was in myself. I was broke. Credit card maxed. And the only thing I had to show for it were the AirPods. The next day I tried returning them but they wouldn’t accept the return because of their return policy on headphones. I vowed to myself to never gamble again, wrote a note in my phone describing what I was feeling so I could read it if I was ever tempted. That week I fell into a depressive episode. I couldn’t afford groceries, lied to friends and family for not spending time with them because I feared they would want to order food, I didn’t want to admit what happened, so I isolated myself.
That week was what I thought was the hardest. I just stayed in bed signing up to every casino out there for free spins no deposit sign ups to try to fill the void but you never actually win anything on no deposit spins. Finally, my good friend asked what is going on and I immediately bursted into tears and told her I was broke, and my credit card maxed. We work at the same job, and long story short, are both getting $5000 in retro pay because of a expired union contract. She told me she would lend me $5000 now, and I would give her my retro money when we get it in February. This was one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me. Reluctantly, I decided to accept this kindness and we worked out a budget on how I would not let this happen again. Here’s the thing, and I will never forgive myself for, I didn’t tell her all this happened because of gambling. I was too ashamed and embarrassed.
Life was somewhat normal again for a couple weeks until one night I decide to just put in $100 and see if I can win some of what I now owed my friend back. After $500 lost, those same feelings came back, but worse since I felt I betrayed my friend’s kindness, and that this isn’t the first time this happened.
Fast forward to November - I won again (not nearly enough to recover my losses), paid my credit card and cancelled the payment, lost it all again. Then towards the end of November, my $1000 for rent sitting in my savings account kept calling my name. I have never ever been in a position where I would risk not affording rent, but my addiction was stronger and I lost $500 of it. I had about a week until my rent was due, I had nowhere to turn, I couldn’t ask my friend for a loan because in her mind, and from the few times she asked, I was sticking to my budget. My new way of handling stress was gambling, so I put another $100 in and won $600. I was saved and again vowed myself to never put myself into this position again and ‘quit’.
Now it is December, I guess this is my rock bottom. Not nearly as bad as some people’s, but here it is. I took out another credit card for ‘emergencies’ since my main one is maxed. I was good, and didn’t use it except to buy a few groceries which I swore I would pay off on payday. My mental health declined, and I deposited $100 and lost it. Then another $100. Lost it. Made another ‘promise’ to myself to stop and I did until last night. I now owe $1,000 on the new credit card, and my main one is now in a negative balance because of a subscription.
I am a liar, I take advantage of people’s kindness that I didn’t deserve in the first place, and now in more credit card debt than I know how to deal with. All I can wish for is I’ve learned my lesson. That the money I lost I will never get back, and to find some way to fill the void gambling has left in my life. After only the first day, I don’t know what will give me that feeling of excitement, the feeling of being alive. I had all my casino accounts deleted this morning, but I know there are more out there, I just really hope I can stop myself from ever going back on this path.
If you made it this far thank you for reading. If you have any suggestions on what I can do to not relapse, and any hobbies or activities that can fill the void please let me know.

I repost this every year to try to help those spending more than they would like on HUT and to educate newer players on this issue before it becomes a problem. A lot of people do the majority of their spending in the first month or two so it's good to talk about now pretty soon before the next iteration releases.
You can be a whale of a spender, free to play, or anything in between and that's fine as long as you're okay with it and it's not negatively affecting your life. Some people would rather rip packs to improve a team they'll use all year instead of blowing $30 on a night out at a bar or movie or whatever. The other side to that is that I've personally seen people spend over $10,000 in a single year on coin sales and over $800 on a single card. I've seem people sell cards for rent money. The important thing is to honestly assess where you're at, what you want, what this pack will actually get you, and what you're buying.
Facts:

• Your odds of pulling a crazy card are very very low, which is not easily understood when looking at this sub. No one posts their shitty pack contents consistently. As with a casino, LOSING is very quiet! There's no sad sound or flashy lights when your slot machine pulls or pack opens and don't pull something. Think about how many packs are bought and quicksold without generating a post! It's at least 100-1.
• Your odds will SEEM higher than they are, because people post and upvote good pulls which push them to and stick them at the top slots of the sub. WINNING is VERY LOUD! In casinos you hear the bells and dings and see the lights from like three rows over! This tricks your brain into thinking winning is more likely than it is. It's the same on this subreddit.
• This game has a large stake in convincing you to buy packs, EA is a business. This is why they use terms like gold to describe cards where the majority go for quicksell value. They're forced to display odds, so they get around that by having "gold" mean nothing and publishing THOSE odds. That's not transparency, that's minimal legal compliance.
• There's no denying the awesome feeling of pulling something epic out of a pack, it's a huge rush which will cement itself in your brain. You'll either get to see the player you pull daily, or what you trade for daily. This consistent seeing the result from the one time you pulled something good sticks in your brain making winning just seem more likely than it is. If you were to keep a tally of dollars spent vs value received you'd have a better mental frame for packs.
• If you watch big pack opening videos, you can see just how little $100-$1000 in cash or whatever is likely to get you.
• "The last pack I'll buy", or "my team is complete!" is a running joke around here. Even if you pull the best card in the game your team won't be done. Even if you pull the top five cards in the game any day of the year it's the same result.
• That one next card won't make you win even 5% more games. As much as I hate that you can pay for a competitive advantage, the advantage you get isn't enough to create a lot of Ws for you. What percentage of top 20 teams are super duper 1%er stacked?
• The top players often use team's that wouldn't be considered 10/10, or even 6/10 compared to the epic teams you see here weekly. Time is better spent learning to improve and playing more games if the end goal is winning.
• If you pull something big then pulling another card will seem likely, why not buy a pack? If you pull nothing, you're due for a pull, why not buy a pack? You don't have many cues to stop, but there is no "due for a good pack".
• Your brain does not have it easy, which should be clear by now... Is the next pack going to be different?!?

Here's what you can do to frame it correctly in your brain

• Remove your stored credit card from your account. This will force you to type in the numbers if you decide you want a pack. This extra time gives your brain a minute to ponder the decision.
• Better yet you can buy a PSN card BEFORE you start, which has the value you want to spend.
• Best is probably buying coins, then buying packs with those. More bang for your buck and a clear stopping point.
• Keep track of how much you spend as you go through the year. Make yourself write your new purchase on this sheet before you buy, and make yourself view the yearly total. $5 and here and $5 there add up over time but are individually easy to not notice.
• All this content will be GONE in a year or less. On average, even if you sell coins, you're likely to get maybe 5-10% back depending on when you sell.
• If you're having a hard time not getting excited about packs and browse from a full browser, hide pack pull flaired posts.
• If you have a gambling problem, get help. 1-800-522-4700 is the number for the national gambling hotline in the US. Here are some Canadian resources. I've heard of people not making rent but buying packs, and I've heard people blow over $2,000 on packs. This shit can get real, fast.

I think it's important that people understand the realities before buying packs. It's like a raffle/lottery, sure you could win a fancy McDavid (or a smaller prize), but you're way more likely to get something that won't even help your team let alone fit on your team.
If you're determined to get that new player you get a much better return buying coins from a triple checked regular seller (/hutcoinsales). You have to be sure who you're talking to, and that they've been reliable for a very long time, but at least you're paying for more than unrealized hope. I'd say on average in my experience you get at least 3x the value buying coins than you receive on average buying packs. Coins are hard to buy at the beginning of the year though FYI.
Here's a good video about microtransactions and their history, if you feel like being angry today
Upvote it or don't, karma is not the point. Sticky it and downvote the shit out of it. Hope all is well with all of you! If something is outdated let me know, I haven't bought the game this year or for the past few years.

(English is not my first language)
I’ve been trying to stop gambling for about 2 years now. I’m highly addicted to online slot machines. I’m a total junkie I know it.When I play I feel completely numb and nothing matters. Today I spent 6 hours at least playing on my phone and lost 600$. That money was borrowed to pay my rent. I must have lost 20k this year alone. I pawned almost everything that I owned to feed my need to play. Stuff that had a lot of sentimental value to me. I have self Excluded myself from a lot of casinos only to find myself joining new ones. I won a few jackpot overtime that could have pull me out of debt but I’ve lost it all and played more. It’s a never ending circle. I’ve been in this situation so many times that i have lost count. I feel powerless. I wish I could feel normal about life again.
I don’t know what to do

"Some Simple tips for CD devs to make CP2077 feel more alive in upcoming DLCs (Please read)
First off, this game was an aesthetic treat and compared to GTAV, it is indeed much more "dense" with the core areas so much more beautiful in that regard... But no game is perfect, nor is it realistic in this decade to expect a full "city simulator" for any dev or in any game, so that's not what I'm expecting out of Night City not even under the most ideal of circumstances... That said, there are plenty of room for improvement, bug fixes sure, but also beyond that I'd like to see more in the upcoming DLC's that make NightCity more alive, not even necessarily newer and larger maps, but just practical added-elements and additional functional components that would go a long way towards making the city appear more 'alive', and immersive and dynamic and all that was illuded to but never fully manifested...
So in terms of most bang for buck and the low-hanging fruit (80/20 principle):

TRANSPORTATION

1) Bring back (or rather develope for the first time) the promised subway system... this shouldn't be that hard to do... it would add an element of connectivity of the different parts of the city... Leave fast travel as an option, for those that want to ride the train shouldn't be forced to use loading screens
2) Air taxi(s) -- in the age of Telsa self driving cars, hyperloops, drone taxis we should have plenty of automated air taxi options in the world of CP2077, basically like the taxi hailing component in GTAIV (Liberty City) except the player can hail an air taxi that lands close to where he is standing, he gets in, and then chooses any destination and it automatically flys him to the location, while allowing him to look out the windows and enjoy the night city from above / higher perspective... this is simplier than simply giving the player ability to fly hovercars/etc since an air taxi is just from point to point and its trivial to code a system that flys the player from any point in the city to any other point without crashing into any buildings... we've seen NightCity from the ground, now lets see it from the sky!
3) Rented transporation -- user pays to be able to rent jet packs, hoverboards, scooters at different locations in the city so he can use a public transportation but on a personal level... for the jet packs cap a max height so that its still basically hovering at or around slightly above ground level, giving the user the discretion of travel but not allowing him to fly or scale above buildings etc... this requires money to rent and if the equipment is damaged, lost, stolen or not returned properly the users bank account will be deducted for the amount ( see #ECONOMY)

INTERIORS

1) Skyscrapers with observation deck -- in every major city there is a theme like this, take Seattle for example you can visit the tallest building in Seattle downtown and go up on the obs deck and see the city view from high above, I would say incorporate some options like this where user can enter some of the taller buildings in NightCity, ride up the elevator to the higher decks and see the city from that view... maybe even add a floor with fine dinning where user can take a friend/date/group to the restuarant and eat while enjoying watching the scenery of the nightcity below etc...
2) All major buildings enter-able (is that a word? lol) with at least a ground lobby.... right now most of the buildings are just fake exteriors, nice to look at from the outside but completely fake and empty with no insides... Due to system restrains its not practical to simulate every room of every floor of every building in nightcity with furnished interiors and real windows and all that... but at least make the first floor /lobby area of every large and major building enter-able so that the character can walk in and out of them... for certain buildings you may want to make a working/functional lobby elevator that leads to an underground garage and/or allows the user to ride the elevator to above ground higher floors of the building... or have the elevator only allow certain floors to be accessed and furnish these floors with realistic settings/environment and this can tie in nicely with the job/work/career paths discussed in #ECONOMY section with gives you the office space to put a number of companies in which the user can find and switch jobs and work in corporate paths etc... for example allow the user to customize and decorate his own "office/desk", and if he has a window office, then that would provide another unique view/scenery of nightcity from above ground perspective, one that can only be gotten from working at that particular company/job, and gives him an incentive to work late to see the city from nighttime while burning the midnight oil
3) Multiple apartments, the user should be able to pick and choose from a vast selection and array of living arrangements and this necessities a lot of hotel/condo/apartment options which means these buildings need to have interiors and furnished and environments fully built out...

ECONOMY

1) Ability to find and work a job, with multiple career paths and with ability to move up in the corporate world... this provides the user with a stead stream of income for which he can use to buy fancier cars, to move into newer and better apartments /condos etc.. and to buy fancier items like designer cloths and the suches... not to mention to spend on fine dinning in high end restuarants which can tie in nicely with going on datings, impressing women with luxury cars and expensive meals and "date nights out" at elaborate events.... basically there has to be a purpose and meaning to making more money, and the process of making more money has to be derived from a job or work or career of some sort as the main component...
Have a real economy with unemployment, inflation, commodity prices, and all of that impact and influence and affect the user in his everyday life... for example if a major terror event or pandemic causes the Nightcity to suffer an economic depression for a few months then its possible the company that the user is working at has to lay off people and he gets canned and has to downsize to a smaller apartment, loses his girlfriend/wife, and then has to find another lower paying job and stuck in the downward cycle for a few years until he is able to win the lottery (#GAMBLING/SPECUTLATION/BETTING) or his luck somehow changes...
Everything should cost money, it costs money to rent an apartement and it should also cost money to eat and drink... basically he user has to spend money to eat otherwise he will starve to death... and the user has to keep paying rent every month for whatever apartment he resides otherwise he gets evicted and could even become homeless and have to live in one of those nasty tents in tenty city or under a highway bridge etc etc
Grocery stores, restuarants, movie theaters, hotels, and shopping malls... There should be at least a few convinennce stores, shopping malls, restuarants and other retail places spread throughout nightcity, this is a component and element of the economy as well as a means for the user to spend all the hard earned money he worked towards... for example if you give a homeless a few bucks he should be able to use it to spend at a store on the corner to get something to eat and then that makes him happy because he is no longer so hungry... there should be a tie in for economy, money, and the ability to exchange that for goods and services (barber, tatto artists cough cough) and associate these goods and services to emotional feelings of happiness and satisfication for both the user /player and the NPCs...

SEASONS

There should be a distinction between autumn/fall, spring, summer, winter etc... This gives a big cycle sense of passage of time that cannot be simulated with the current day/night cycles along... in the winter the sun should rise and set at different times/angles than the summer...
In addition, I'd like to see an accurate night sky map/ stars. NightCity takes place in SoCal, its trivial to map the nightsky for the year 2077 in the SoCal area... even in the latest Flight Simulator 2020 the stars are now accurate at night...
Ability to choose LIVE weather based on current user location (see Flight Simulator) so say its raining in Dallas Texas where a user is playing, then in NightCity it will match that and we raining in the game as well... also ability to customize weather on-the-fly in real-time (see Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020) and have that instantly change in the game without reloading...
Along with seasons I'd like to be able to see holiday celebrations for example Christmas time espeically... I want to hear holiday music and see buildings decorated with Christmas lights and the jolly spirits of it all... Think the ambiance and environment of say Polar Express, bring that alive to Night City for Xmas...

MINI GAMES and other Microcosm

There is a "Go" board in Chinatown... but its fake... and the players aren't even attempting to play Go... See what Google Deepmind did with AlphaGo, Facebook made an OpenGo that they open sourced... there is also LeelaZero and KataGo free AI engines that have already been trained using deeplearning/machineAI to be far better than the Go masters... the same applies to Chess by the way... but I didn't see a Chess board in Night City yet... in any case all these board games the computer AI can now master... make these games playable in NightCity, so the user can watch two NPC's play a round of Go/Chess/etc (Ai vs Ai) or can join and sit down and take a seat and play against an NPC a real game of Go/Chess, (or in the future if CP gets a multiplayer than humans can play against one another etc) basically a microcosms and games-within-a-game....
Spotify/Netflix/youTube integrations... I'd like to see the user have a portable/personal mp3 player or app on his virtual smartphone that allows him to link to his personal -reallife- spotify account to listen to music while in the game... also on the TV screens at home to be able to watch netflix movies while in this virtual apartment chilling with his date/friends... and things like YouTube integration would be nice... maybe even pornhub integration....
Other simple games like darts, bowling and even toys like RC cars or DJI drones... give the use the ability to fly drones (check out DJI Simulator) or operate rc model cars etc... basically toys that he can buy at electronic stores or corner outlets that he can then use these toys in real life for any variety of enjoyments... this also ties into #ECONOMY and why its important to have a good job /career that pays good money!

GAMBLING/SPECUTLATION/INVESTMENTS/BETTING

Have some form of virtual casinos in the game, NightCity reminds me of Vegas, yet not one slot machine and not one means to gamble or bet? How about the ability to play the stockmarket, bitcoins, and make bets and well as go gambling, cards, poker, etc this not only provides a form of entertainment but also gives the user a way to quickly win / lose a lot of money and for the risk takers they may wish to invest their money in high risk high reward speculative stocks in the stock market instead of immediately spending it on a new apartment, new car, new tech gadget etc etc... this would also tie back to #ECONOMY since the more the user earns the more income he has to spend on gambling/stocks and the better the economy does the higher his stocks return on investment...

ROMANCE/RELATIONSHIPS

Should be able to court any pretty woman on the streets, to walk up to her and say hi and have a path/chance to a dialogue that leads to setting up a first date... and following that if it goes well can progress to more dates and evetnually her moving in with the user and eventually even having a kid, getting married, and the works... each female NPC should have a male preference and a threshold of compatiblity... so that for example if on the first date the guy is cheap and takes her to low end resturant, doesn't have a nice car to pick her up with, and otherwise seems like a low life then she wouldn't process/continue with him... whereas if he is already established with a multimillion apartment, supercar, takes her to most expensive restuarant in NightCity, then I could see her going back to his place on the first date and maybe even getting pregnant right then and there that night etc..."

Hi, noobie here. Me and a few friends recently got into Elona+ (first 1.99, then 2.01 when we realised that came out. I battled between elona+C 1.9 and elona+2.01, because elona+C custom AI looks fucking awesome, and its really sad its not in 2.01 yet. But 2.01 has the full story, but ANYWAY unrelated.) and we're all seeing who can "finish the game" first. I have a few questions though, about how stuff works around in the game that I either haven't found on the wiki or im just been stupidly unsure about.
1*- How does skill potential work? And even more confusing to me, Attribute Potential?
My current understanding is that skill potential is learning rate, that resets (to %100 maybe idk?) when ever your character levels that skill. If that's how it works, is it worth spending pp to get a skill to %400 if its going to reset anyway? This is when taking like a skill of 10 to 15 or something like that.
Secondly, Attribute potential? I have 0 idea about how this works. When I start a new game, they're all superb or good. After a while of playing they slowly degrade, but there's no like trainer that will set them back up. How do you get those to go back up?
2*- Surviving mages in dungeons | How to grind resistances?
Me and my friends are playing on Loss. Currently we go dwarf (I like golem, we found out fairy mage ISNT noob friendly) warrior and we always find ourselves dying to magic/mages in level 1 dungeons when we're at like level 8-10. How do you build up magic resistance? Do you just hope you get good RNG gear when looting dungeons? There's no player enchanting in the game I've noticed so idk how to get things like that. :( And for us, if dungeons are too dangerous how do we grind out good gear? Currently we spam harvest quests in yowyn for PP and GP, which we turn into learning skills and buying equipment or saving for a farm deed to plant the herb crops.
3*- Ranged weapons in hand slot?
My friend was wondering about this, and i am too. We noticed you can put ranged weapons like grenades pistols bows etc, in hand slots. Does this allow you to duel wield range weapons? Say i had a dagger in one hand, pistol in the other and pistol in shoot, would that work like that or no?
4*- How to grind main attributes?
How do you grind thing's like con, strength, charisma, etc? I'm currently assuming that these are based on the skills each represent. Like, if i grow my mining skill, my const will slowly go up based on that skill. So if i wanted the max const, i would have to get every skill under const to the highest it can go?
5*- How do you guys organize your houses/do storage | Wtf is a dungeon deed?
To my understanding, there's no containers/chests to put thing's in. But nothing at your house despawns? So currently i just drop things in piles like "Ok, scrolls in this pile, books in this pile, weapons in this pile, etcetcetc" Is that how its normally done? I'm so used to putting thing's in chests, having ways to organize loot, etc. Are thing's like storage houses worth it? Why not just store it in the starter house. Also, what is a dungeon deed? You can store more in it then a storage house, and it costs no rent. Surely this is the best house? What's the downside to it?
6*- Elona's pet progression
How's the AI work. I don't understand gene engineering yet because I haven't really got up to that, so when I do ill read up on the wiki. But i mean in like combat, Elona+C has this awesome custom AI feature, where you can teach spells, set up AI patterns, etcetc. Is that ALL elona+C? Is there no way i can say, stat my slave towards been a paladin, or teach my mage healing spells, etc?
7*- How important is joining a guild?
We always go some form of warrioclaymore, so how important is joining the fighters guild? Are the thing's like cheaper item identification global? Are the guild quests hard/worth? I know the item you get for reaching the top guild rank or whatever is really cool.
8*- Is crafting viable early game? Can you become a blacksmith?
I know you can start shops and stuff, and i had the cute idea of setting up a blacksmith one day. But crafting somewhat confuses me. You can only get materials by going to dungeons/spots on world map, and materials are completely RNG to my understanding. So is thing's like no longer relying on potion stores and crafting them yourself viable? Am i just not grinding enough materials?
And regarding the blacksmith, i didn't really see anyway to craft weapons, or heavy armor. When i used the tailor bench or w/e i could only craft robes and such.
9*- Misc questions that are too small for a main question.
What does the training machine in the shelter actually train? Skill books VS actually grinding (like a book of tactics vs actually training it) Casino worth? Elochat broken? Best crops for early game farm? Do building locations mattebest building locations? (like deeds) Do town NPC's respawn? (slave master in derhpy got voted out for been a werewolf and i can't buy slaves now) Bandit/criminal playthrough possible? Claymore is a 2 handed weapon, yet i can use a shield with it, How's that work? Drinking, is there no like water option or something, cause shop keeps only have like 3 cups of tea or w/e?
Oh, and 2k fullscreen possible? I edited the config file but it seems like the height was hardlocked at 868 or something, and wouldn't cover the entire screen.
And lastly, are there any active elona+ discord communities, or any other active elona+ groups other then this, the wiki and /jp/? Jw!

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https://preview.redd.it/dmihxp7uu6e61.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=84f417ed1d5322744df6a7bd0fbefb2f7e26474f
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As I mentioned before, in Vegas you see slots already in the airport. While we were waiting for our luggage, people already sat at the gambling machines. I, myself, wanted to try slots in a better atmosphere than an LED-lit airport. Anyways, it seemed funny to play games on a big touch screen and I made sure that Vegas is a gambling paradise. We, though, put only so much money in the slots to get the free drinks.
After a few hours, I was already walking through the Vegas strip. It was interesting to observe the gigantic hotels, countless lights from slots, cozy Americans and the bewitched tourists that all were just thinking of how to faster spend all of their saved up money in the slots.
It was surprising just how many people were heading every night exactly to Caesar’s Palace. Well, it wasn’t a surprise, considering that this hotel was enormous, the casino space was even more enormous, but even all of that was topped by the shopping mall, which, of course, was also full of slots. There were 16 restaurants in the same hotel space. And have I mentioned that the second-largest nightclub in the world Omnia nightclub Las Vegas, was also located here? While I and Dāvis were walking around the hotel we got lost a few times and it was very complicated to talk of a place to meet.
The New Year’s party for us continued for two days and two nights. We met the most real American party groups as well as girls with whom we spent together nights. Unfortunately, the fast pace of Vegas meant that all of those people already packed their bags and left by 2 January. But my friend and I wanted to relax a little bit after all of the partying.
In the following days, we went to the Grand Canyon with a helicopter. We ordered a helicopter tour, which started in Vegas, flew to the Grand Canyon and flew back to Vegas. This tour made us feel a bit like celebrities, considering that a limo drives you from hotel to the helicopter and then you take off and fly over the whole Las Vegas. The helicopter landed next to the Grand Canyon. We also got to enjoy a glass of champagne and some snacks, which was offered by the tour. The canyon has been created by washing the Colorado River through granite rocks for thousands of years, leaving a unique and glorious memory of the wonders nature can bring. While flying over the I couldn’t take my eyes off of this amazing beauty. By the way, the Grand Canyon is almost the size of Latvia. Truly worth seeing, if you happen to be in Vegas and want to experience something exclusive with a dose of adrenaline.
To balance out cultural wonders with scandalous events, on this night we chose to enjoy Las Vegas Titty Time and went to strip club. The easiest way to get there was to go to the Vegas Strip and check out the advertised offers. It wasn’t long before we got offered a good price, as well as a limo that will take us there. Then we got offered an even better price, then a cocktail, then - a private lap dance and in the end, we got offered a meal. At that moment we couldn’t resist their offer anymore and we went to a strip club. We didn’t even know where they were taking us, but we wanted an adventure and we wound up in Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club. The place was just like my expectations of what an American strip club should look like - big neon signs, angry-looking bouncers, a bit dirty atmosphere and a lot of foreign girls. While there we exchanged our money into one-dollar bills and went straight to the dance hall. I haven’t ever seen someone work that hard to earn one dollar. The view was quite enjoyable, to be honest, I had imagined it being a bit different, but striptease is like a delicate choreographic dance - there was nothing vulgar about it, only erotica. Definitely, only a confident woman can show herself off like that. Their feminine bodies helped as well. Their breasts were rarely real, though, mostly it was just some surgeon’s masterpiece. As a big female lover, I can say, that what allures me more is the naturality.
We got offered lap dances and when we heard the price, we were surprised. Only twenty dollars. I would even say that that is unforgivably cheap for us just to try it once. We started buying dances for each other, till cash in the wallet was nearly gone. We thought of a challenge to invite all of the girls in the club for the lap dance to get the “full experience”. Personally, my favorite was the only girl who had real breasts. Some of the girls wanted us to take the “private room” for 120 dollars. Some even offered the special “private room” for 500 dollars, but as they implied, it was more than just a dance. I politely declined as I didn’t think I had to pay someone for that.
In the following days, we continued to do stuff that is in any Vegas tourist to-do-list. For example, we went to Gordon Ramsey’s famous Hell’s Kitchen restaurant. Dāvis, my companion on this trip, as well as partly its initiator had reserved us a table, but we still had to wait in line. At the start, we just chatted between each other, but it seemed like this hour will be spent in boredom, till girls, who were standing in front of us, turned around. One girl, who later turned out to be a literature teacher for middle schoolers, said that our language seemed interesting to her and asked where are we from. At that moment, the girls' openness didn’t surprise me, all the people in America were unusually nice and ready to start a conversation with strangers. Of course, girls were also intrigued by our unusual language and exotic European charm. Dāvis and I were as well intrigued by the girls’ exotic and alluring American charm. Long story short, two tables for two turned into one table for four. After the restaurant we persuaded the girls to spend the following evening together, going through the smaller Vegas streets and bars.
One more adventure was going to Death Valley. We rented a yellow Ford Mustang convertible, to really enjoy this trip. It’s really unbelievably hot there, but the locals say that during nighttime you might freeze. Death Valley is something everyone should see in their lifetime. The Vegas hotels disappeared pretty fast and all we saw was large, vast desert and majestic mountains. I would call it a surreal view, honestly pretty unbelievable that there is something like that on the Earth. While walking through the vast salt lakes you get the feeling like you’re in a “Star Wars” movie on some distant planet. Just standing in the middle of the field gives an illusion that you are somewhere far from civilization because wherever you look, there is no sign of life.
When back in the city we again focused on something more worldly, such as going to clubs. Interesting, that even on 7th January, which was just a Tuesday, Omnia nightclub was filled with people. I’m talking thousands. Well, the party wasn’t anything special, compared to the New Year’s party. Maybe I just wasn’t in a party mood. But then I saw a beautiful blonde standing next to the bar and, quite naturally, went to her and we started chatting. We didn’t talk for long, because I took her hand and we went to the middle of the dance floor. We danced all night till the club was about to close. The girl had a very short, tight dress and she didn’t have any panties on. From time to time I checked her dress, which was constantly sliding up, so the whole club wouldn’t see her nakedness. The moment when the music stopped, we were holding each other and making out. After getting back into reality, I realized that I have no plan on what to do with this beautiful girl further. We went to a hotel pool. We started talking about life in the USA and in Latvia and how they were similar but also so different. I didn’t want the romantic evening to end, so I thought of a plan. In American movies, couples always go skinny dipping. I persuaded the girl to jump in the water with me, naked. I hadn’t thought of water being so cold during the night and we froze in a moment. Good, that I could save the situation by offering a warm shower in my hotel room. She agreed. We went to shower together and warmed up so much that we didn’t even get to the bed. The next morning the girl quickly took her things and disappeared. When I checked her Instagram account I understood why - she had pictures with her husband (or boyfriend) and children. Now I have experienced the saying that goes - What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

First off, this game was an aesthetic treat and compared to GTAV, it is indeed much more "dense" with the core areas so much more beautiful in that regard... But no game is perfect, nor is it realistic in this decade to expect a full "city simulator" for any dev or in any game, so that's not what I'm expecting out of Night City not even under the most ideal of circumstances... That said, there are plenty of room for improvement, bug fixes sure, but also beyond that I'd like to see more in the upcoming DLC's that make NightCity more alive, not even necessarily newer and larger maps, but just practical added-elements and additional functional components that would go a long way towards making the city appear more 'alive', and immersive and dynamic and all that was illuded to but never fully manifested...
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So in terms of most bang for buck and the low-hanging fruit (80/20 principle):
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In real life there is a sense of interconnecitivity and permanance... NightCity doesn't have this and is just a disconnected Hodgepodge of static elements that have no effect on one another... for example I should be able to balance the transportation cost of getting to work versus the career path that I want and the amount of money I'm making and taking into account my net worth... it wouldn't make sense for me to accept an entry level position that requires hours of commute every morning when I'm living on the other end of town... and on the otherhand if I'm processed to a VP making bigly bucks I can afford to take the automated air taxi every morning to work in central business district and still live outside by the beautiful beachfront property etc... likewise a downturn in the economy will affect my company and I could get laid off or no bonus for the year, or if I'm working a gig job that is seasonal then come spring I wouldn't need to find a second side gig to make up for the loss of income... and all of that ties into what kind of loft I can afford, what kind of car I can buy/lease/rent and the food I can eat (tv dinner vs fine dining) and the cloths that I can put in my back which affects the sort of women on the street that I can radnomdly hit on and get intro interested into d going on a date with me etc etc etc... its all interconnected and has a continuation that affecst so much more than just mindless NPCs spawning and despawning right in front on my eyes...
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#TRANSPORTATION
1) Bring back (or rather develope for the first time) the promised subway system... this shouldn't be that hard to do... it would add an element of connectivity of the different parts of the city... Leave fast travel as an option, for those that want to ride the train shouldn't be forced to use loading screens
2) Air taxi(s) -- in the age of Telsa self driving cars, hyperloops, drone taxis we should have plenty of automated air taxi options in the world of CP2077, basically like the taxi hailing component in GTAIV (Liberty City) except the player can hail an air taxi that lands close to where he is standing, he gets in, and then chooses any destination and it automatically flys him to the location, while allowing him to look out the windows and enjoy the night city from above / higher perspective... this is simplier than simply giving the player ability to fly hovercars/etc since an air taxi is just from point to point and its trivial to code a system that flys the player from any point in the city to any other point without crashing into any buildings... we've seen NightCity from the ground, now lets see it from the sky!
3) Rented transporation -- user pays to be able to rent jet packs, hoverboards, scooters at different locations in the city so he can use a public transportation but on a personal level... for the jet packs cap a max height so that its still basically hovering at or around slightly above ground level, giving the user the discretion of travel but not allowing him to fly or scale above buildings etc... this requires money to rent and if the equipment is damaged, lost, stolen or not returned properly the users bank account will be deducted for the amount ( see #ECONOMY)
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#JOBS/CAREERS/WORK/EDUCATION/GIGs
Ability to work a day job to earn steady money and climb a career ladder by taking courses or going to school at night... ability to go on the nightcity job boards or online to hunt and interview for other jobs... to change industries and do other jobs... to participate in the Gig economy... like drive around in some version of ubereats delivering food or packages to people... or a corporate desk job thats basically on the computer all day... for corporate day jobs the game should give the user the ability to fastforward just like he can go to bed and fast forward for eight hours etc....
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#INTERIORS
1) Skyscrapers with observation deck -- in every major city there is a theme like this, take Seattle for example you can visit the tallest building in Seattle downtown and go up on the obs deck and see the city view from high above, I would say incorporate some options like this where user can enter some of the taller buildings in NightCity, ride up the elevator to the higher decks and see the city from that view... maybe even add a floor with fine dinning where user can take a friend/date/group to the restuarant and eat while enjoying watching the scenery of the nightcity below etc...
2) All major buildings enter-able (is that a word? lol) with at least a ground lobby.... right now most of the buildings are just fake exteriors, nice to look at from the outside but completely fake and empty with no insides... Due to system restrains its not practical to simulate every room of every floor of every building in nightcity with furnished interiors and real windows and all that... but at least make the first floor /lobby area of every large and major building enter-able so that the character can walk in and out of them... for certain buildings you may want to make a working/functional lobby elevator that leads to an underground garage and/or allows the user to ride the elevator to above ground higher floors of the building... or have the elevator only allow certain floors to be accessed and furnish these floors with realistic settings/environment and this can tie in nicely with the job/work/career paths discussed in #ECONOMY section with gives you the office space to put a number of companies in which the user can find and switch jobs and work in corporate paths etc... for example allow the user to customize and decorate his own "office/desk", and if he has a window office, then that would provide another unique view/scenery of nightcity from above ground perspective, one that can only be gotten from working at that particular company/job, and gives him an incentive to work late to see the city from nighttime while burning the midnight oil:)
3) Multiple apartments, the user should be able to pick and choose from a vast selection and array of living arrangements and this necessities a lot of hotel/condo/apartment options which means these buildings need to have interiors and furnished and environments fully built out...
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#ECONOMY
1) Ability to find and work a job, with multiple career paths and with ability to move up in the corporate world... this provides the user with a steady stream of income for which he can use to buy fancier cars, to move into newer and better apartments /condos etc.. and to buy fancier items like designer cloths and the suches... not to mention to spend on fine dinning in high end restuarants which can tie in nicely with going on datings, impressing women with luxury cars and expensive meals and "date nights out" at elaborate events.... basically there has to be a purpose and meaning to making more money, and the process of making more money has to be derived from a job or work or career of some sort as the main component...
2) Have a real economy with unemployment, inflation, commodity prices, and all of that impact and influence and affect the user in his everyday life... for example if a major terror event or pandemic causes the Nightcity to suffer an economic depression for a few months then its possible the company that the user is working at has to lay off people and he gets canned and has to downsize to a smaller apartment, loses his girlfriend/wife, and then has to find another lower paying job and stuck in the downward cycle for a few years until he is able to win the lottery (#GAMBLING/SPECUTLATION/BETTING) or his luck somehow changes...
3) Everything should cost money, it costs money to rent an apartement and it should also cost money to eat and drink... basically he user has to spend money to eat otherwise he will starve to death... and the user has to keep paying rent every month for whatever apartment he resides otherwise he gets evicted and could even become homeless and have to live in one of those nasty tents in tenty city or under a highway bridge etc etc
4) Grocery stores, restuarants, movie theaters, hotels, and shopping malls... There should be at least a few convinennce stores, shopping malls, restuarants and other retail places spread throughout nightcity, this is a component and element of the economy as well as a means for the user to spend all the hard earned money he worked towards... for example if you give a homeless a few bucks he should be able to use it to spend at a store on the corner to get something to eat and then that makes him happy because he is no longer so hungry... there should be a tie in for economy, money, and the ability to exchange that for goods and services (barber, tatto artists cough cough) and associate these goods and services to emotional feelings of happiness and satisfication for both the user /player and the NPCs...
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#SEASONS
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There should be a distinction between autumn/fall, spring, summer, winter etc... This gives a big cycle sense of passage of time that cannot be simulated with the current day/night cycles along... in the winter the sun should rise and set at different times/angles than the summer...
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In addition, I'd like to see an accurate night sky map/ stars. NightCity takes place in SoCal, its trivial to map the nightsky for the year 2077 in the SoCal area... even in the latest Flight Simulator 2020 the stars are now accurate at night...
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Ability to choose LIVE weather based on current user location (see Flight Simulator) so say its raining in Dallas Texas where a user is playing, then in NightCity it will match that and we raining in the game as well... also ability to customize weather on-the-fly in real-time (see Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020) and have that instantly change in the game without reloading...
Along with seasons I'd like to be able to see holiday celebrations for example Christmas time espeically... I want to hear holiday music and see buildings decorated with Christmas lights and the jolly spirits of it all... Think the ambiance and environment of say Polar Express, bring that alive to Night City for Xmas...
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#MINI GAMES and other Microcosm
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There is a "Go" board in Chinatown... but its fake... and the players aren't even attempting to play Go... See what Google Deepmind did with AlphaGo, Facebook made an OpenGo that they open sourced... there is also LeelaZero and KataGo free AI engines that have already been trained using deeplearning/machineAI to be far better than the Go masters... the same applies to Chess by the way... but I didn't see a Chess board in Night City yet... in any case all these board games the computer AI can now master... make these games playable in NightCity, so the user can watch two NPC's play a round of Go/Chess/etc (Ai vs Ai) or can join and sit down and take a seat and play against an NPC a real game of Go/Chess, (or in the future if CP gets a multiplayer than humans can play against one another etc) basically a microcosms and games-within-a-game....
Spotify/Netflix/youTube integrations... I'd like to see the user have a portable/personal mp3 player or app on his virtual smartphone that allows him to link to his personal -reallife- spotify account to listen to music while in the game... also on the TV screens at home to be able to watch netflix movies while in this virtual apartment chilling with his date/friends... and things like YouTube integration would be nice... maybe even pornhub integration....
Other simple games like darts, bowling and even toys like RC cars or DJI drones... give the use the ability to fly drones (check out DJI Simulator) or operate rc model cars etc... basically toys that he can buy at electronic stores or corner outlets that he can then use these toys in real life for any variety of enjoyments... this also ties into #ECONOMY and why its important to have a good job /career that pays good money!
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#GAMBLING/SPECUTLATION/INVESTMENTS/BETTING
Have some form of virtual casinos in the game, NightCity reminds me of Vegas, yet not one slot machine and not one means to gamble or bet? How about the ability to play the stockmarket, bitcoins, and make bets and well as go gambling, cards, poker, etc this not only provides a form of entertainment but also gives the user a way to quickly win / lose a lot of money and for the risk takers they may wish to invest their money in high risk high reward speculative stocks in the stock market instead of immediately spending it on a new apartment, new car, new tech gadget etc etc... this would also tie back to #ECONOMY since the more the user earns the more income he has to spend on gambling/stocks and the better the economy does the higher his stocks return on investment...
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#ROMANCE/RELATIONSHIPS
Should be able to court any pretty woman on the streets, to walk up to her and say hi and have a path/chance to a dialogue that leads to setting up a first date... and following that if it goes well can progress to more dates and evetnually her moving in with the user and eventually even having a kid, getting married, and the works... each female NPC should have a male preference and a threshold of compatiblity... so that for example if on the first date the guy is cheap and takes her to low end resturant, doesn't have a nice car to pick her up with, and otherwise seems like a low life then she wouldn't process/continue with him... whereas if he is already established with a multimillion apartment, supercar, takes her to most expensive restuarant in NightCity, then I could see her going back to his place on the first date and maybe even getting pregnant right then and there that night etc...

God, this took way more words to accurately represent than I anticipated. Sorry.
So my trajectory for a crutch started when I was 18 and deeply afraid of the world around me and having absolutely no confidence in who I was. I went to the casino with friends and loved it. Like, I will never love anything as much as I used to love gambling.
Well that never ends well does it? 11 months off the bet now after six years in active addiction and four years of various degrees of trying.
Problem is I turned to alcohol during the Bad Years and loved that too. I could write my own version of "Drinking: A Love Story" and fill hundreds of pages with memories from the Glory Days, which were 10% about the bonding I had with friends (none of whom I even speak to anymore) and 90% my all-encompassing internal universe blooming into this warm, ethereal world upon contact with alcohol. I was gambling, thinking about gambling, drinking, or thinking about drinking for the vast majority of the time and I honestly didn't think too much of it, even though I had a vague sense of unease about my life and my future every day. I didn't believe the future would happen to me.
And then right before the peak of my gambling addiction where shit just hit the fan -- I mean it was just flying everywhere -- I discovered marijuana from a Spokane Valley dispensary and it scared the piss out of me. Absolutely blasted me away from this world and did it in about 5 seconds, from a single puff on a pipe. Could not walk for the first minute; I remember stumbling toward the couch and hitting my head on the wall. And then two minutes of panic, then thirty minutes of giggly fascination with the universe I found myself in. And then when the trip started to fade, I realized that the whole experience was unbelievably cool and I wanted that again right now. And so I smoked more.
It was shortly after then that I had The Summer From Hell, where I had no job, everything in my life was deeply wrong and I felt it in the core of my being, and I tried to placate myself with weed, constantly. Not just daily, but constantly. I'd wake up and tell myself "today was going to be different", then get high and when noon rolled around and I realized I hadn't actually done anything, a dark cloud would grip me until nightfall. I'd try to pretend it wasn't there, but it knew that I knew that I felt its presence. Then at night everything felt okay. Rinse. Repeat.
My finances were in shambles, I was being kept afloat by monthly checks from dad and those often went into a slot machine or a dispensary and Ramen noodles. I missed rent twice. I had absolutely no confidence in myself and I could not see a path out.
I continued smoking and started becoming convinced that my breathing technique was wrong because I could not get anywhere near as high as I used to. If I was being honest with myself, I saw no noticeable effect at all. I became suicidal and my behavior started becoming more erratic with each passing day. Near the end I would take long drives around the town I was living in at the time trying to feel any sense of calm at all. A drive used to give me that. Now I just felt like I was grasping at straws to keep myself sane. Sometimes I'd get so frustrated that I'd go 100 down a residential street just to try to feel anything remotely good. I remember feeling, really feeling, that the world is a cold, calculating place, that existence itself is not just burdensome but evil. I would call the suicide hotline and sometimes that would help.
I finally broke down and began to recover for my gambling with the help of the only two guys at the Gamblers' Anonymous meeting that one night. I moved back home and started job hunting, no weed was available (that I knew of at the time. I've since learned that weed is always available.). I was actively enjoying my recovery. But two months later (still cannot believe it only took that long) I relapsed.
Since then I found the ideal job for someone in my exact position, with coworkers who I click with and whose company I pretty much universally enjoy. Shortly after I started this job, I found out my cousin smokes and I got back on the weed train. It was nice.
Then one day in the following February, I smoked a batch and after one particular rip, I felt a deep pulsing pain in my chest. I felt my head go ice cold and my heart start to thump. I was absolutely certain I was having a heart attack. I came out and told my dad, he called 911 and then as soon as he connected with someone, I realized that maybe it was just the weed fucking with me. We cancelled the ambulance and I drove myself to the hospital. My dad followed, which I wasn't expecting. So when the doctors asked what was wrong and my dad was right there, I just told them I had a panic attack and they gave me a $50 Ativan. (It turns out that I love Ativan, too.)
The past three years have brought me professional success. I continued smoking off and on during this period and every time now, I get into deep monologues in my head and feel a vague sense of shame that I always try to brush off. I have a hard time parsing out what is authentically me and what is the weed. I come away often feeling disoriented and confused.
Last year I fell in love in Colombia with my first boyfriend and Sinalgen Max, which towards the end I spent $400 on in a single month. During this time I had my first real professional bomb and fell back into gambling at the ground floor casino in the building I was working in. When I came back home, I felt like I was being ripped apart from my own world and coming back home yet again was a traumatic experience, placated by the Ibuprofen bottle full of $135 worth of Sinalgen I had prepared myself with. I regretted not bringing more.
It's been a rocky road since then. My work life is not exceptionally good now: between that and my dive into proper non-functioning alcoholism during the first round of quarantine, I've lost a lot of trust. And my plans to move back to Colombia and live some more months with my boyfriend have been squashed by COVID, which could not have happened at a worse time for me. I miss him everyday and sometimes have a good cry about how much I miss my life down there, but sometimes I feel like I don't deserve to miss it, or that I don't actually miss it and I'm playing tricks on myself. Who moves to Colombia on a whim??
Lately I've been using kratom. A lot. (Me? No!) Like, 'withdrawals when I first stopped' a lot. I quit it for a 3-week span during a time in which I presided over my friends' wedding and it was such a special moment. Immediately after that wedding, on the ride home, I had an honest conversation with myself about how even though I was grateful I was fully immersed in that day, facing my normal reality was making my tummy turn. That cloud. There it is. So I bought a bag and smoked it when I got back home, and the conversation continued.
I'm in Idaho so I'm surrounded by idiots of the highest caliber in this pandemic and god dammit if that just doesn't piss me off and make me want to run away and I can't. So I stopped my Antabuse 11 days ago and I drank and got high again last night and got so, so gloriously fucked up. But I couldn't even maintain a conversation with my boyfriend and in my heart, didn't feel like I even wanted to. I was feeling all the love I needed already within myself from the crossfade -- my absolute favorite high of all.
That realization bothered me this morning. So I smoked to try to ease the disconnect and immediately fell back into the headspace of guilt and feeling disoriented and confused and scared about my life. I don't want to be confused and scared anymore, I've had enough of that feeling to last my damn life. I can escape it for months, even a year or more on some stretches, but it claws its way back into my head and I recognize it like an old friend right away, and I know that once it's lodged in my head it's not going anywhere for awhile. Unless I tell it to be quiet for a bit with a substance or a bet.
Now that I'm not high I Just wanted to get all this out because I always think about typing this and never follow through. Is it stupid that I still feel like my usage isn't the worst thing in the world? Like after typing all this out, my heart is still not convinced. I tell myself that this is in no way hurting me as much as the gambling did, but is that true? I'm in my late 20s now, am I going to be traumatized when I'm 30 because I still don't feel confident in my life trajectory?
I open my journal that I only write in when I'm sober and I see a guy who sounds happy, who is "so grateful" he's "doing this". But I also know that that guy had a constant sense of unease in his heart when he wrote that. Or do I? Does my recall of how I felt back then matter more than what's on the page? I guess that's the thing: I don't trust myself and my own perceptions anymore. And I don't know whether that's my underlying anxiety, the weed, or a genuine judgment about who I am.

Ohio - A large island amusement park similar to Cedar Point, possibly during a Halloween event. Your target and several of his employees have rented out the park for the day. Some assassination opportunities include: making a rollercoaster derail when your target is taking a private ride, drop tower malfunction, poisoned margarita served at the restaurant next to the beach section, disguising as a haunted house attraction monster, Ferris wheel sniping, cutting the brakes to a go-kart, starting a carousel at full speed before the target gets on his horse, beating the target to death with a whack-a-mole hammer at the arcade, poisoned cotton candy, disguising as a clown and concealing a bomb inside of a balloon, etc.
New Jersey - a large zoo. Kill opportunities include: well, it’s a zoo. You can imagine the possibilities.
Bruges - the beautiful, scenic city of Bruges, Belgium. I imagine many opportunities related to the city’s canals and its archaic architecture. Possibly with some subtle references to the 2008 dark comedy “In Bruges”.
Zurich - a luxury train in Switzerland. I dunno I just think the layout of a train could make for a very interesting and challenging map.
South Pacific Islands - this mission takes place on a cruise ship which is hosting a hard rock & heavy metal music festival. One of the targets being a member of one of the bands performing. Possible kill opportunities: “pyrotechnics failure”, disguising as the band’s guitarist to get backstage and bludgeon the target to death with your “axe”, drowning the target while he’s in a hot tub waiting for his groupies to show up, causing a slot machine in the yacht’s casino to electrocute your target by messing with its wires, engaging in a rigged game of Russian Roulette in some shady secret room near the casino, making a lighting fixture crash down onto the target during his concert, etc.
Utah - a ski resort up in the mountains. Your targets have rented the resort privately for a couple’s vacation leaving only them, their guards, and those who work on the grounds of the lodge. Make sure that it’s one vacation they won’t live to forget. Kill opportunities: making a cable car or ski lift plummet to the ground, burying a bomb in the snow and detonating once a target snowboards or skis into its vicinity, throwing a propane tank down into the fireplace of the lodge’s common room, disguising as a loggelumberjack and making a large tree land on the target, disguising as a logger to gain access to a chainsaw, feeding a target into a woodchipper (Fargo style lol), poisoning a milkshake the couple orders at the lodge’s diner so that their romantic mutual drinking kills two birds with one stone, sneaking into the targets’ room and rubbing bear bait into the husband’s hunting clothes before he goes on a hunting trip in the nearby woods, etc.

Hello my name is Sofia I'm 16 years old and I'm from Russia and I have 2 years to survive before my end.
A while ago I made one post in subreddit about immigration, but everything I got is a lot of downvotes and mainly got ignored. Like I got ignored by everything my whole life.
First of all, I gonna say why I have a time limit, there a lot of reasons for that. I don't sure what I should begin, but in short my current status:

• I have big problems with my family. Begining with no right to at least have a hair cut ending with dad that can get drunk, go back home and destroy everything, and beat my mom. Every day when both parents are home there are endless scandals and constant words about divorce.
• My mother always telling me about her problems since I was a little child. And keep talking like I was born to help her and at the same time, she can say why did I give birth to you. I sometimes respond with "I didn't ask you to give birth to me"
• Even my little brother hates me, make fun of me, call me a girl, that I look like a girl (don't sure how I should react, because I'm transgender), can punch me... I mean will punch me.
• Also, I eating instant noodles and the cheapest food, because we don't earn very much, a few times we don't even have enough money to pay for rent.
• I crying for almost every day. And it's doesn't even matter when my parents saw it, like if it was ok to always cry.
• I have problems at my school. Not only school bullies have hated me, but also some teachers. Bullies can beat me with a big crowd and even if I going lye down they gonna kick me.
• I can't be myself. I can't have my own opinion, every opinion is done by my mother, I can't say It's bad, but sometimes I don't want to be a robot that does whatever they say with no rights to say "I want" or simply say "no"
• I have no friends because they weren't my actual friends. I always used to be their doll with they can play. They betrayed me, they make fun of me.
• I have nightmares, my past is haunting me. It's made even one scar on my hand.
• If I don't escape this country I will be doomed. When I will be 18 there will be forced conscription that has a problem with "Dedovshchina". People like I don't survive there, in the Russian army, it's not for weak people.
• I tried to suicide, but I never go too far.
• No one even cares about me, most of the people that I know hate me, no one can help me, even I...
• I scared of everything, I can't even write to people online, I just scared of them.
• A lot of transphobes make fun of me almost every day.
• Every day I keep thinking about self-harm. And sometimes I do this.
• Every time I want to do something to help myself there is something that trying to stop me and if I try to avoid that everything will be even worse than before.
• I lost belief in humanity. I don't even sure if it even exists.
• My dysphoria is killing me, but with depression, it feels so bad. I can't look at the mirror.
• My country took last rights from trans people so I can't live here anymore
• I'm useless I can't do anything. I can't draw, I can't even complete even an easy target. I'm so stupid...
• I'm broken and I have no sense to live on. Should I continue?......

So this is a small portion of everything that happened to me. I going to tell you some stories and going to open some of these themes that I listed above. I'll begin with my parents.
When I was 10 years old or less my dad always lost all money in casino on a slot machine. He worked as a guard in the same casino where he lost all money. Once he almost gave away our apartment like that.
Now we running out of money because of coronavirus. He was working at the hotel as a guard. The hotel went bankrupt and we didn't receive payment for 3 months. And he was working not legal there so we were totally dead.
Basically, we trying to survive (4 people) on around $544/month but as I said he loves to lose money so it's looking more like $408/month for 4 people but mainly even less. We need to use them to pay for two apartments that look like very bad, having two bad looking apartments in a bad city doesn't mean we rich. And also we need to pay for an extra apartment where we all live. Sometimes we are being sued for not paying at the right time.
Also, there was a stupid situation so we almost got homeless. My dad's father had our apartment, and so he cheated on my grandmother, who was not even close to me, I never saw her until I was 14 years old and eventually, a child was born, later my dad's father died and their family claimed inheritance, including our apartment, they were also rich and this angered me the most, like why they need our apartment in with we live, but also my mom telling about these problems to me. I was around 10.
The baby is one year old. His Parents: WE NEEAD AN APARTAMENT FOR HIM Because HE iS a bik Boi
We don't even have wallpapers before. Just empty walls actually that place still don't have wallpapers everywhere. Mainly, this was because my dad is lazy he doesn't do anything, he was doing only: Farting on the couch, playing video games on smartphone, annoys everyone, etc. Every hard work was done by my mother and with some of our help (kids)
My dad. He doesn't give a fuck about us. And he always will. He living only for himself and only for himself.
The due first month of quarantine in Russia I was eating only one time per day.
When we had no money, father was god knows where, we can't even live in our house at this moment we lived in grandma house and grandma can't even give money or support us somehow, so mainly we were hungry,
So I hate my dad, but not my mom, she just trying to save us from our dad.
My mom trying to control my life, watching my every step, it continues to my 14 years old, then and for today she just annoys me with asking what I was doing today or who do I write to, etc.
Also, my mom sometimes trying to make suicide, and it's so hard to stop her, she just going to our medkit and start eating every drug. It's terrible.
My mom and my brother love to make fun of me. Trying to annoy me and made me cry. Telling jokes about me, and if I don't act like I don't care, they gonna make fun of me even more.
My mother almost every time very sick. She just sneezed and broken spine or something, she felt so bad, so she crying of pain I asked her for calling to a hospital, but she declines. Every time she looks like she gonna die right now she doesn't want to call for help to the hospital.
Yesterday (6th August) my mom almost set the whole house on fire, by putting a wooden circle on a gas stove and then a big bowl of bad soup, and then after a while, it ignited, and a great column of fire rose and a lot of smoke came out.
My dad drunk at least one time per week. He often loses his items such a phone because he literally can sleep under the fence of some house. He destroyed a lot of things in our house. The fridge still has traces of his punches. Rarely, but he can punch me. He doesn't love me at all, he loves only his second son.
Endless scandals. I don't even know what to say about it. I can't protect anyone anymore when dad is angry.
And things that always with me. Whatever someone does something bad, they told me that it was I. In a time of school it makes me wanna die because the whole class told the teacher that I PUNCH myself, poor bullies, how dare me!
While I was in my classroom due to math lessons, there was break time and I sat in my class since I don't have friends and reasons to go out. And then my classmate ran in class with words that I stole sled of some little kid, then class appears and say that's it's true and we saw you, then the school principal and homeroom teacher appeared and they saying that they got me and me in big trouble but God was on my side in this day and teacher start to debate with them how I can steal something while I'm in school sitting in this classroom! Thankfully she able to approve that they wrong. Actually, this is the first time and last time that someone saved me from hell. But all school already thinks that I stole a sled of little kid.
Also, they love to stalk me to my home and scream that I'm "gay" and "pussy" and other words. When I go downstairs they very often trip me up and then I fall very badly. They also love to hide my clothes so I stay in school for many hours to find my cloth.
I was in school bullies start to say that I miserable, doesn't deserve a feature and many things, but when I can't take it anymore and say something in their side they start to kick me with a crowd, I was laying down, and 4 people just keep kicking me, whole class watch this everyone was happy they said punch harder, kick harder! I think it just like forever.
But at some point it's ended, I can't feel anything, I don't even stand up, I just cried. Then the teacher walks in class and saw me. I think she was thinking "oh no he* is crying again!". Then she said stand up and said go with me, I thought she will finally help me, but I was so wrong. She went with me to high school (I never was in there at this moment), to the headmaster of this school. I sat in her cabinet and she starts to scream at me that everyone got tired of you and you should die we will kick you from school because of your behaviors. I just crying and can't even listen to all the things that she said, I thought I just disappointed my mom. After 1 hour and more of scream at me she said stand up, we gotta go, I asked what do you mean? but don't get a response back. We walked outside with a fire exit door, there was a black tuned car and it has a lot of people inside. At this time I thought I'll die and I start to say sorry for everyone, but mainly for my mother. I thought we gonna ride in the forest because I never saw these places before, the whole road I just praying. No one is speaking. Finally, I saw my house, and parked at the entrance to the entrance (It looks like English doesn't have this word), she said to go out but gives me some document. I slowly walked upstairs, every step I felt worse and worse, and finally, when I was on the 5th floor I ring to door, my mom opened the door I gave her this document and when she asked me "What happened?" I started to cry again and fall on my bed. The document contains something about my expulsion from school. It was my worst day. You can say me, why you can't change school but in a place where I live before, there was only one school.
Is I'm a bad person? I'm always tried to help people and animals if I can.
I stop at least three people and my mother of suicide in real life.. don't sure if this counts...
I destroyed a lot of "columbine" community everywhere I can and trying to help people, change their minds. So I stop many people of suicide and killing everyone in schools.
There was a thing as 'The Groups of Death' most popular was "Blue whale". It was a game in real life where you do some tasks, but then it quickly flows into tasks like "cut your wrist" and so on. The ending of this game is to kill yourself, doesn't matter with way, but mainly it's just jumping from a rooftop. I was horrified about this, so I had an idea to create an anti-group of death called "Pink Flamingo". Everything was fine, I helped a lot of people, make therapy for them, give advice, and at the end of the game you should be alright and happy, there was no real end. But in one day my group was banned from Vkontakte as I remember for this reason: I created a group of death. Bravo, they even block my own page almost permanent, it was hard to restore it, it was a special ban.
I really remember that I made a lot of happy birthday congratulations on things in windows movie maker to everyone... I was 8 years old or less... I always helped grandmothers, carrying their products, or moving them across the road.
Some bullies wanted to kick poor cat to death, I don't let them do that, so they kicked me... BUT hey! I saved a cat!
When I had internet "friends" we had a community, I called it "TeaTown community", we were like a big family, I helped to everyone there, they need something I give it to them and a lot of other things, yes they kinda don't like me because I always want to help everyone and it annoys them. And in one day we built a big city with a 10+ player population and I started this community brick by brick with a new friend (everyone knew them even before I appear there) and in one day after a month of friendship he just asks me to add his friend to private since I don't know him and I was scared of security and for everyone, I said no! They start to scream on me and call me a pussy and such and I add him under this pressure and then they immediately kill me and destroyed my house and storehouse of the city I was broken they even used cheats so I can't fight with them. But it's not all, they told something to all of my friends, and everyone started to hate me and they start to don't trust me. I managed to get a little bit of their trust and I became a part of this community again. I build a church and live in there. I still helped to everyone. But in one day someone busted me, he gives access to church to those two who grief me before and then they destroyed my church, no items survived. I actually have a few footages where they were cheating and griefing. Actually, I showed it to admins. And guess what? I got permanently banned. They bought the admins. The main conflict is very stupid, to solve it I need to apologize for not letting them grief me and don't add them immediately to private. Also one of them always saying something I'm a god and you're nothing.
When I finally realized that I'm transgender, I made a coming out and every friend that I have, even my best friend start to hate me even gay one and it made me feel very bad. A was lone for a month and since I can't find new friends I tried to go back to them. They made a lot of transphobic things like burning the trans flag, mis-pronouns me and everything, but in one day they reach something above of normal, when I died I teleported in a strange place, they made a test lab that I need to pass, they gave me adventure mode, some of them was in spectator mode, my "best friend" was behind glass, they said hello and then look in the chest I saw a pufferfish that named "Trans have no right" they say eat it. I eat it, don't sure why. The next thing was a potion, that I need to drink to be female, but unfortunately, It doesn't work and I got aids, then they give me a wooden pickaxe and said to dig obsidian... 4 blocks of obsidian with a wooden pickaxe, sick bastards! Then there was another room with insane hard parkour. After a while, I passed it and I got into another room where I should choose one of three answers, in fact, some of them were not transphobic like there was a question about Kazahstan with dates. At the end of the quiz, they hide the right answer behind me, so it should make me confused, once it solved I went to the final room. I saw to "dicks" and my best friend said choice dick, sit and die, there was a big black one with racism on a sign that gonna destroy all my organs because it's a big and sticky white one with gonna pull out my guts and made me die. I don't remember what I chose, but it was horrible we was a friend for many years and then they do this? How sad, even my "best friend"
Since that, I don't really have friends anymore.
All my classmates around me in school used drugs and they were very bad and none of them want to be my friend. This why I never had a friend in real life. Everyone in real life was very bad, many of them were in police stations already. Even girls were bad, they drunk too much and engaged in prostitution.
All the people I knew had a boyfriend/girlfriend/whatever at some point, but I never had, so they very shooked when they knew this fact, but I don't think I need that, I don't think I need something, maybe I just don't deserve life. In fact, I don't even sure with sexual orientation is I or do I even want to have someone.
I hate to remember the place where I lived before because of school, memories, and thing like:
I just going to home from school and then from nowhere on a large speed a big van is riding on the sidewalk not even giving any sign. I jumped out at the last moment. It still gives me nightmares.
Or like when someone kicked me in school when I was going downstairs and then when I was going home someone walking far away and scream that I'm "faggot" and other words but then I saw two small dogs. Nothing special, but then huge dogs start to appear from nowhere and I start thinking about going back and find another way to go home, but when I turn my head I realized I already surrounded by huge evil dogs that barked and growled at me and then ran sharply at me. A big crowd of dogs surrounded me and chased me all over the city and I was running for my life, most of these dogs were huge, and I ran from almost 20 dogs. Honestly, I don't know why they can't catch me and where most of them gone when I was pretty close to my home, but it's doesn't matter. Yes and I cried and scream the whole road to home.
Just a typical day of my life. Mainly when I home I'll be saved. But every time I outside. Something bad is going to happen.
Also, teachers called me rude words and lower my grades. Imagine being a kid and the teacher call you a bag of shit that can't do anything.
I was in this place a week ago and I was praying to my mother to not go there, but she starts to say I never coming outside and I should ride or else I can say bye to my laptop. We stuck there for three days we just should be there for one day. We don't even have pillows or blankets. And I meet old school bullies that start to make fun of me one of them even punches me. He called me "faggot" again like in past. It was a nightmare. Everyone hates me there. My little brother hates me because I want to leave this nightmare as fast as I can, but he wants to be there for a longer time. I actually made a wrong thing later.
I wanted to escape and my reason for that was If stay there even more I will kill myself because so many horrifying memories' was there. I just walked to a train station, so basically I escaped from a mom and my little brother. And a bully from school walked to me, I didn't saw him and he said "Fuck you" and then he punches me in a face. Well then since I have no money with me right now (and always), so I have a "perfect" Idea to walk to my city on foot (48KM to the final station and also a long way to the city), but I just walked just one station is about 4km from there and I got already tired, but also at this moment I realize that I don't have keys for the apartment and also I need to go another 10+ stations + another more things I don't think of, so I went back.
The second reason I do so is that my mom and my brother start to make jokes about me and I just can't stand it.
I returned to a nightmare place and we got stuck here. I still feel very bad.
Actually, this isn't a serious escape because in one-day whole class the whole day made fun of me by calling me with bad words, they tripped me, they spat paper at me, and do much more. And the teacher remarked not to them but ME. I wonder why??? Then everything like in a fog. It was the end of the lesson and someone made my cry, I run out of class and saw fire exit, with tears, I very fast open this door and ran out of school, they tried to stop me, they even grab my backpack, but I ran away. So next I was thinking about getting drown or just die in the forest, maybe even of starving to death, but temporarily I hide somewhere and lay down there. It was a very cold autumn. I don't even wear a jacket and I was alone, thinking about suicide and the end of me, I was laying on trash, I even thought about live like a hobo, Because I can't live like that anymore. My mom can't do anything to help me she can't do it to end. So bullies can't get punished because of that. I always was in bruises. Even more, bullies have come up with an offensive nickname for me because of which I want to change my last name. The worst part that this thing also works in English and almost in every country, because this word sounds almost the same even though it writes very differently.
My poor relatives made me feel very sad and bad, but not every one of them. Looking at an old, lonely grandfather it's so heartbreaking, it's so awful to see a poor uncle stricken with a stroke and other can laugh on the situation, it's so wrong... also recently grandfather killed a cat... he put it somewhere and close it... he doesn't even feed it... a week passed... and then he opened a place where he put cat... but it's already almost died... on next day cat just died.....
Well, I don't do anything bad. I always tried to help people. But everything I received from them it just hates and other sad things. Nothing good. Yes, I made bad stuff and I apologize for that. I apologize that I was born. Wow, it hurt so much. I upset my parents. And I will upset them even more.
Teachers say there is no way I saying the truth because I can't always be "White and fluffy". I mean no one even trusts me for some reason. My friends busted me.
I always, every day, for many years keep talking to my parents that I'm going to make suicide, but they say that I don't saw a real-life, I don't live enough, and what kind of troubles you can even have in this age?
My family and other people keep told that my life is not the worst and I can agree. They can say the other one lives is worse than me, you at least have food, water, and a roof overhead, people from Africa are very poor, do you think about them? Yes, often think about poor people and that they need more help than me in fact I'm living very well in their background.
When I was a child I was thinking about writing a book about my life and write it when I will grow up, but now I don't find this idea very good. In fact, it's very stupid. I always feel stupid. Everyone thinks I'm stupid, retarded, or something. And I can kinda agree with them.
And I can't help myself because something will stop me and made feel me even worse and no one can help me. Every time I want to make animation, website, or whatever my programs got crashed, light turn off for the whole house, I lost internet connection, I got lost files or even worse corrupted because it most painful and any possible way to stop me from working that you can imagine.
I know odd people that sometimes can come from nowhere and write something odd. Something about eggs, something about fursuits while why do I in the world even want to know the cost of this? I don't hear you for months and you come back and say interesting how much fursuit is a cost or even "docking", various sort of things. There were only people that I talked with for like 5 months. I feel so terrible. For some things, I feel like I was raped and I don't even kidding.
First of all, I gonna say why I have a time limit, there a lot of reasons for that. I don't sure about what I should begin, but the current status that I'm suffering from Bullies, of my Family, of my Government, and what is going on in my country.
I tried to find transgender friends in Russia, but then I realized that it's an almost impossible challenge since most of them not just dressing and do other staff. Even when I saw an infinite number of almost always gross people I find the right thing, but even there I find bad people. One of them was younger than me he was 15 years old and then after a long conversation he said that he gives jobs to his boyfriend and do such things and send me some images, I try to change his mind, but he doesn't want to listen to me, he just enjoy that. And other transgenders I found were good people, but they weren't sure if they were transgender, but it still better than nothing. They never called me a friend in fact when I asked, they answer that we, not friends. And it broke my heart... I realized that I never had friends.
I scared to start to speak with anyone. When I don't speak everything usually better. So I can't say even a single word.
Almost every night I have a nightmare about someone is trying to catch me and I trying to escape. It could be everything and mainly I ran in deserted places even if there should be a lot of people in them. The alternative ending is the screamer version so I can't even run for a while before screamer, I instantly got caught. Also there another type of dream where I walking on familiar but very changed places, most scary that before it had many people, but since every dream there less and fewer people, and everything got weirder and weirder, so everything change, even more, some building is destroying random big holes that always in random place start appear, world start to less looking to real and more have strange odd colors. I walking alone in an odd and scary world and getting die every time. The third type of dream is when I can't help someone, someone died and everything, recently I have only this type of dream.
I need to notice that I'm MtF transgender. I notice it that late because I still scared. I want to escape from this endless nightmare, start a new life from a blank page, and finally be myself. But looking at others' lives gives me a thing. I can't complain about this. A lot of people living even worse than me.
I never talk to a psychotherapist because I was always scared to know to door or just make an appointment. But it has almost no sense, I'll just break my life forever by visiting a psychotherapist because there's almost no way to apply for a job because no one gonna takes a person who visited a psychotherapist. And most of them transphobes, so they gonna hurt me. The other one can't help me since the government looking for rights from transgenders.
I stuck in a circle of self-harm and writing a suicide note. I don't even strong enough to write this post, it was a nightmare for me. And I need to escape this country as fast as I can, because I can't take it any longer, people like me gonna die there.
I say almost nothing about I got bullied on the internet every day or how my government is worst in the world, I tired and you should know that I don't fully talk even about parents, friendship themes.
I feel like a bug without limbs that can't move and do something. Everyone else can draw, programming, make music, and basically anything else. I can't do anything everything that I made is just awful. My poems, lyrics for songs, my site...
I hate the way I look. I can't look in the mirror. I think I'm fat, I hate my voice, I hate how tall I am, I hate my haircut, I hate that I can't control my life, My face and whole body, The way I talk, The way I write. I want to have HRT and control my life so much.
I can't stand for myself and no one can. I can't help myself and no one can.
Everything I can do is repeatedly dying every day. And trying to not kill me. I didn't do anything to deserve all of this. I didn't do anything wrong.
I forgot to notice that my mom is a transphobe. She said that these people should be in a mental hospital, or better on an island where no one can see them, or even better burn them all!...
I need your help I ask you to find a way to help me! I can't live here anymore, I need to get out.
I don't know what I should do...
Please, help me survive...