1. Started a small mutual fund and retirement fund when I was just starting out and still in undergrad. I did not have much and was fully self sufficient. But someone came to my job and showed us how retirement plans worked and convinced me to start one. Same with a mutual fund. I never put more than $20-$40 in each because I didn’t have much but boy did that pay off.

2. I purchased a small condo in the city with some of the money I put away in #1. Just sold it recently (20 years after purchasing it; lived in it for 5 years, rented it out for a profit for 15 years). I made a lot of money off that sale. More money than I’ve ever seen at once.

3. My spouse and I have always lived below our means. Now we’re not frugal - we go out for nice dinners, travel, have kids. We also have good jobs. But, when we purchased a house we could have afforded to get one that was $600k and instead opted for a smaller townhome in a nice neighborhood for almost half the price. Living this way has paid off more than I could have ever imagined. Both of us don’t have to work. We travel whenever we want. We could technically both stop working in our 40s/50s and probably be fine. It’s a feeling of freedom. We’ve never over-extended ourselves. When our colleagues and friends were buying expensive homes and expensive cars and extending themselves, we just didn’t do that.

I can’t imagine not using a password manager. I am a long-time user of 1Password and have been very happy with the service and apps. I recommend it to everyone. Worth every penny and then some IMO.

Yes these are exactly the kinds of communities I’m hoping will get replicated on Lemmy.

Health-related communities, particularly those for specific medical conditions. Those are the communities that really become a lifeline for people, help them through diagnoses or just difficult times, and can serve as an excellent resource. I was active on r/diabetes_t1 on Reddit and am trying to get a community started here on Lenny.world (!T1diabetes).

I don’t recall the specifics of the one article I read about this, but yes, I think being able to declare bankruptcy gives an out for at least some of the debt. I believe there was also some way that doing so protected Tesla but can’t recall exactly how that worked.

This just doesn’t seem like a “he’s just bad at running a company” situation. A company of Twitter’s age and maturity could have run itself for quite some time if Elon just let it continue on. He’s doing this intentionally for some self-serving reason.

That’s exactly why. He didn’t want to go through with JT and I think devaluing the company might be a way for him to get out of it via bankruptcy. I remember reading that somewhere and thought it made the most sense. He’s a dude with a lot of money (at least on paper) and I’m sure he has people with a decent amount of financial acumen advising him what to do or at least trying to steer him in the right direction. I don’t think it’s any 6D chess or anything, just finance and tech bros playing finance and tech bro games.

IIRC, causing its value to plummet is the easiest way for him to get out of this whole fiasco via bankruptcy (remember, he was basically forced into buying it). He played a stupid game and won a stupid prize and now he’s desperately trying to find a way out.

This only makes sense when you understand that he’s intentionally trying to destroy Twitter.

Depends on the app you’re using but usually you just click on the hashtag of interest and then click on the + button or something similar in the upper right corner of the screen. That’s how you do it in both Mona and Ivory.

I like mastodon but the content you see is only driven by two things: the people you follow and the hashtags you follow. Basically, you follow people and hashtags to effectively create your own “algorithm.” Once I understood this and really made an effort to follow both people and hashtags that interested me, my Mastodon feed became way more interesting than my Twitter feed.

I also like the quality of the interactions better on Mastodon. Because of how the whole thing works, you’re not going to get bombarded with horrible stuff in most cases (at least the chances seem to be far less for that kind of thing happening).

But it definitely takes more time and energy to curate compared to Twitter.

Yes people forget that. They also forget how people said Twitter was too difficult or “techie” for the average user.

A lot of this has more to do with the mindset people approached Twitter with than the service itself. Honestly, I always approached Twitter the way you describe Mastodon here. I just wanted to find people who had interests similar to mine and connect with them, as well as find interesting news. Maybe that’s why moving from Twitter to Mastodon has been to seamless. Just a lot less anger and hate on Mastodon from what I’ve experienced. A much nicer atmosphere.

I would love this! At least for Mastodon and Lemmy, which I consider somewhat similar. I use Mona for Mastodon and would love have a separate tab within that app for accessing Lemmy. I just really like the design and feature set of the app and having it extended to Lemmy would be so nice.

Too late for me. It’s just one other social media company subject to the whims of an irrational rich tech bro. Not interested in that whole scene anymore. Reddit is forever tarnished.

So a few things. This is a CVS minute-clinic visit, not a visit to a general provider. The minute clinics have contracts with insurance companies that look a bit different in terms of what and who they are permitted by the insurance companies to treat. There are some really odd variations in these contracts by insurance companies for reasons that are not always grounded in science.

This, as you’ve noted, is an unfortunate reality of a for-profit health care system that is dictated by private companies, insurance companies, and mind-bogglingly complex contracts that sit between providers and patients. The most annoying part IMO is that insurance companies provide zero transparency into these contracts and the justification behind decisions. It’s all “business decisions” at the end of the day, not decisions that are medically sound and in the best interest of the patient.

And for those wondering why OP maybe just didn’t go to a “regular doctor” - the U.S. has a horrible shortage of general practitioners (primary care) physicians. This shortage is worse in some areas than others. And even if you’re lucky to live in an area that has general practitioners, the waiting list to get into their practices might be long. This leaves many people relying on a “doc in the box” aka CVS Minute Clinic or some similar outfit. These doc in the box clinics often only have a nurse or nurse practitioner on site, with a supervising physician off side. They are for-profit entities and they work with the insurance companies to design their contracts to maximize profit.

If you ever find yourself in OP’s physician, one easy way to get around this is to indicate that the visit is for something more general, like abdominal pain or unexplained fever. While the staff still might refer you off to another provider, it might be a good way to at least “get in” with someone.

Another option is to visit a local urgent care clinic if one is available and covered by insurance. These are often staffed by actual physicians so they can treat a wider range of conditions. Many often even have testing facilities right on site for a number of issues.

Finally, another option is to call your insurance company and see if they have an over-the-phone nurse consultant available. They can usually help direct you to the right location for treatment based on your symptoms and insurance coverage.

But yes, OP, I agree with you that we need something better. Medicaid and Medicare have slowly been expanding and my hope is that they will eventually expand enough to cover all Americans. it has been proven that they can still operate without completely decimating the insurance industry (see Medicare and Medicaid managed care). While I don’t agree with for-profit health insurance, the reality is that they are a lobbying force that has to be worked with if we are going to get everyone universal coverage.

Source: Health policy professional by trade, extensive experience within the health care industry

I think we learned in January 6 that allowing these communities to exist online is more than just letting people express a different political worldview.

Ha, I used to have that same reaction! Had to turn my notifications off for exactly that reason.

We have some not-close friends who are very wealthy. Not billionaires but very deep into the millionaire range. Mansions, fleet of expensive cars, private jet. That sort of thing. The husband took up all sorts of extreme hobbies. He does rather risky vacations and adventures (wife refuses to go with him because she’s more grounded and not willing to risk the lives of their kids). It’s almost like the husband has come to believe that being rich makes him immortal, as if any situation he might find himself in can be remedied with enough cash. He seems to not understand that there are simply some perils that all the money in the world cannot save you from.

That is a good point and I fully recognize it’s nearly impossible to draw the line somewhere. But this situation is just so extreme. Like it’s not just someone who went out on a boat, maybe got caught in bad weather because they weren’t paying attention to the forecast or didn’t make needed repairs on their boat and got stuck. Even if someone was out boating for leisure you could chalk it up to an honest mistake or just boneheaded decision. But there’s something about taking such a HUGE risk of intentionally paying $250k to go down to the ocean floor and then necessitating a harrowing rescue that puts so many other lives at risk that just seems incredibly different. It’s way beyond any line most reasonable people could even fathom.

Reality too is that there’s a good chance they won’t be found in time and I’m sure rescue crews know that. Just hope no one else here hurt in the process.

I think it’s a mentality that people tend to develop when they are insanely wealthy. This notion that because they have extreme wealth, nothing can touch them. I know a family who is very wealthy. The father does things all the time (extreme adventures and travel) that just seems incredibly dangerous. He seems unaware that these little adventures present danger that not even all the money in the world could save him from.