Psychic Visions... a bit unhinged

The Need to Stay

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.

like it is not the end of the world if you miss your turn. all the roads are connected to all the other roads. you will find your way very quickly.

unless you're experiencing a genuine emergency, dont even think about making a sudden movement, ESPECIALLY across one or more lanes, just to avoid missing a turn

Miss a turn? It's okay. You get there when you get there.

Left the house late? Nothing you can do about it now. You get there when you get there.

Stopped by a train, or an accident on the highway? It's out of your hands. You get there when you get there.

I know all of these things can be anxiety-inducing. But by the time you're in the car experiencing them, no crazy maneuver will make a meaningful difference in the time it takes to get where you're going, and that maneuver will be at the cost of your safety and others.

Nothing is more important than your life.

dude.

I'd really like to have a small solar set up to help in the case that the power goes out. I don't want to run my whole house, I mean I would, but I think that is out of my budget and skill range.

I was thinking enough to run a electric burner and charge phones for when the power goes out in the winter, or enough to run a fan for a corsi-rosenthal box and a mini-fridge if the power goes out during a combined heat wave & wild fire smoke event. I've heard that ac units have a power usage spike when they first start running that makes them hard to power off smaller than whole house set ups, so I was thinking that I could use the fridge to cool water to then use to cool our bodies.

LOTS of electronics will have an initial large spike. It may depend on whether or not they have a compressor. Our deep freezer also caused a large spike when first plugged in. Electric stoves tear through electricity, you might consider an emergency camp stove or even a solar oven, at least for back up.

Things marketed to Americans such as Jackery or Powerwalls are designed to be easy to use and they are! But they're also very expensive for what one gets. Our small Jackery set up served us great though for many weeks when we had zero power due to Helene.

Things not marketed as strongly to Americans can be much cheaper but can also require either being willing to take a chance on quality (it varies, we've definitely picked up some off brand solar panels that did not generate nearly as much energy as they claimed) or being stronger in the DIY category.

Talk is that China overproduced solar panels this spring in particular because they were counting on Biden's amazing environmental bill to fund a huge amount of green infrastructure in the US. Trump tore that up and the Chinese companies have been left with excess product - prices are crazy cheap. There's also rumors that the Trump admin is going to start adding tariffs to Chinese inverters. So basically this is a great time to get something, even if it's small.

This is the company V went with for our set up after we decided to upgrade after Helene, for most of our batteries and the inverter. The lady who owns it is very nice and their prices are extremely reasonable. Also, their products aren't a "walled garden" so you can use whatever solar panels you like, add on additional things to the system that are a different brand, etc.

With everything going on in the world right now, if I could, I'd expand our system, add on an EV charger, and get a used EV. But I don't actually have a head for electricity - that's all V. But there's 2 different skill sets involved, one is just setting up a system, and other is actually designing the system.

Oh! Just so you know, whatever a solar panel claims to produce? That's only under the most ideal and perfect conditions and probably never. Expect to get a lot less, and just how much less depends on many factors, where you're located on the planet, clouds, trees, how the copper wires are feeling that day, etc. But 25% less than what is claimed is pretty common. So if it's a 200W panel plan on it only producing ~150-180 at best, don't count on that 200W, at least that's been my experience.

I HEAR THE BLUES A-KILLIN' (or: Frasier Meets Columbo)

every fat person you know for the most part probably has a story like this, of medical neglect. many of the stories i've heard personally are when the complaint or the doctor wasn't related at all, like being told to lose weight at the ear nose and throat doctor or at the dentist. it's straight up just bias. it's such a thing that in the show Shrill it's portrayed, when Aidy Bryant goes to the gynecologist and her doctor suggests she get gastric bypass.

the studies on health and fatness are simply not that black and white and there is basically no research that shows that more than an incredibly tiny minority of people can lose weight and keep it off for more than like 2 years. bodies have set points that they gravitate towards, it's not a personal failure. this also is how the weight loss industry succeeds so well - repeat customers.

some of the harm associated with fatness is also due to weight cycling, which is very hard on your body and is even worse if you get off a GLP1, which according to a recent study causes weight to be regained at a rate that is 4x faster than without taking a GLP1.

you don't have to hate yourself. you don't have to hate other people for their body type either. it makes me so sad to see the thinspo tag going around again in 2026 a lot like it was back in the day.

some resources to learn more here:

https://www.reuters.com/article/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/feeling-fat-may-be-worse-for-you-than-being-fat-idUSTON079061/