satire
Relationship satire can be cathartic; when love hurts too much, just laugh.
The Wall
You don't see it until you hit it. That's the thing about modern systems. They look like open doors. They look like pathways. The website is clean, the buttons are bright, the language is welcoming. Apply Now. Get Started. Join Us. It feels like invitation.
By Edward Smith22 minutes ago in Humans
Falling Between Every System
Modern social systems are often described as safety nets. Employment law protects workers. Healthcare programs provide treatment. Disability benefits replace lost income. Unemployment insurance bridges job loss. Each system is presented as a safeguard designed to catch people when life disrupts their ability to function normally. Yet for many people living with disability, chronic illness, or injury, the lived experience is the opposite. Rather than forming a net, these systems stack vertically, each with its own eligibility rules, thresholds, and assumptions. Instead of catching the fall, they create gaps. People do not slip through because they failed to try. They fall because the systems were never designed to align.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcastabout 24 hours ago in Humans
A Historic Declaration
We the People of the Husbands of the United States of America, in Order to form a more perfect Union, and I mean you...with me...establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves, after Puberty, do ordain and establish this Declaration of Co-Dependence.
By Gerard DiLeoa day ago in Humans
Optimizing for the Grade: Inside the Academic Performance Machine
Every system begins as a promise. In school, the promise is simple: work hard, learn the material, demonstrate understanding, and you will be rewarded. Grades will reflect knowledge. Transcripts will tell a clean story about your abilities. Colleges and employers will read that story and understand who you are.
By Lawrence Lease5 days ago in Humans
Waiting Room Magazines Are a Conspiracy Against Sanity
I am awed by the sheer insanity of the system. In a society that congratulates itself on efficiency—on reducing the interval between desire and gratification to the time it takes to double-tap ‘approve’ on your iPhone—we have collectively decided that the ideal prelude to minor surgery, medical examination, or a root canal is a 45-minute browse through a laminated copy of last year’s Vogue magazine.
By Scott Christenson🌴7 days ago in Humans
When Gods Die
Have you ever wondered what happens to all these deities dating back to the beginning of time when people stop acknowledging their existence? Do they simply cease to exist, evaporating into the cosmos, their immortality revoked, or are they banished to live among the mortals? If that’s how it works, imagine how a former god feels when forced to live alongside a species that once worshiped him. Life would become very complicated for the demoted celestial, having to move every ten or twenty years because your neighbors would eventually notice that you never aged while they grew older.
By Mark Gagnon7 days ago in Humans
Roots and Fruit
Roots and Fruit Photo by Lukáš Kulla on Unsplash Most people evaluate life by what shows. Results, behavior, success, failure, growth, collapse. Fruit is easier to measure than roots, so it becomes the focus almost by default. When something goes wrong, attention rushes to what is visible and immediate. When something goes right, credit is assigned to the most recent action. But this way of seeing consistently misreads causality. Fruit is never the beginning of the story. It is the result of something that has been growing quietly, often unnoticed, for a long time.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast7 days ago in Humans
