One thing seemingly unites millennials and Gen Z with respect to their socioeconomic political outlook. That is the younger generation’s consistent trend towards socialist policies. Many younger people today would agree that higher taxes, more government services, a universal income, more regulatory agencies, and debt forgiveness are ideal policies. However, these policies would all need to be carefully administered by a federal bureaucracy already criticized for being bloated and corrupt. Curious then why a society so distrustful of government is demanding that government secure more money and gain more authority to regulate the economy.
The reason for this apparent dissonance is the fact that many, if not most, young people have absolutely no clue about how finance actually works. Federally funded education has failed many generations of students and is a good example of why government programs are inherently bad. Taxpayer funded programs are inherently flawed because there is no private mechanism to ensure success; all public programs are run by people who don’t want to lose their jobs. There is fundamentally no incentive for a public program to solve the problem it was mandated to solve.
Rather, all public programs, including education, are incentivized to follow this cycle: (1) perpetuate low level crises in order to justify the existence of the institution, (2) solve some aspect of the problem, to justify the continued appointment of present leadership, (3) lobby for increased funding to solve the problem during an election/voting cycle, (4) fail to solve the problem while still using limitless tax dollars, (5) repeat. The department of education, along with all other institutions, follow this model. There may be Boy Scouts who work for the government who truly want their agency/department to eventually be shuttered or streamlined due to the unparalleled efficiency, competence, and efficacy of their work. But most bureaucrats simply want to keep their jobs forever.
All this to say that socialist policies which require government oversight are fool’s errands on their face because no public administration can avoid corruption due to the nature of public institutions. Private institutions, which are bound by market forces, may be corrupt, but if there is sufficient competition then corruption is literally impossible. Free, capitalist markets with sufficient competition cannot be corrupt simply because any inefficient allocation of capital via corruption will undermine the company’s ability to compete among other enterprises that dont waste money/resources this way. Obviously reality is more nuanced, but this law is essentially true, also public institutions don’t compete with private ones because public institutions are often funded with infinite public dollars and therefore don’t rely on the “rational consumer.”
The rational consumer is integral to this entire scenario I’m describing. Free market competition cannot exist without a rational consumer who ensures that this competition exists by making reasonable choices about how he spends his hard-earned money. While most economists, have always agreed that the “rational consumer” is a figment of our collective imagination, the premise has always been broadly assumed. The assumption is that people are generally wise enough to understand how finances and market forces work and allocate their money accordingly.
This could not be further from the truth. Scores of youth are suckered by tiktok and YouTube gurus who lie about financial topics to desperate people in to get ad revenue. The youth today are seeing their American dream collapse, in part because most young people graduate high school without even an iota of an understanding about what a “premium” is or how “interest” actually works. People don’t know the difference between a stock and a bond, or that a “401k” doesn’t mean $401,000.
This ignorance of basic economics causes the world’s largest consumer economy, the US, economy to behave monstrously inefficiently because few sectors are competitive and populated by rational consumers. Rather, most markets consist of fools with borrowed money, and corrupt, colluding companies willing to leech and fleece children and adults alike. In turn, this inherent market failure caused by a failed education system, produces a bastardized economy which creates appalling wealth inequality and public hatred of “capitalism” as a concept.
Thus, most young people who are NOT rational economic actors have a tendency to distrust capitalism despite not understanding how finance or “capital” actually works, and therefore they favor socialism or even communism as an answer to a failed economic system despite the fact that public institutions have for more opportunities to be corrupt than competitively private ones do. So you can mark my words, the youth in America will succeed in pushing the US towards socialism, ON BOTH SIDES, because very few people actually understand how finance works yet are enraged by the current order, so the political left and right support candidates who lobby for sweeping political control over the economy.
TL;DR: the DoE has failed several generations and the entire system of American capitalism by not ensuring that graduates understand basic macro/micro economic terms along with personal finance because capitalism requires rational consumers/actors to maintain efficiency yet the average consumer is constantly fleeced out of their money by corporations who are far more sophisticated than zoomer who doesn’t know how compound interest works.

Anyone here interested in cybersecurity, but just worried/doubtful everyday due to the awful and over saturated job market of cybersecurity? it’s like damn was i born in the wrong generation to be a cybersecurity enthusiast

With the recent Gwimbly episode out, I decided to review one of the classic platformers to see the light of Sun in the mid 90's. Everyone remembers the legacy of this game, but boy oh boy, nostalgia glasses sure compensate for some of the glaring issues that plague this title.
Precedents and Development:
"The magic Adventures of Gwimbly in Corn Land" is one of those Megadrive publicity games, such as M&Ms or The Noid video-game, this time from the Monsanto company. And the least said about this, the better. Left-to-right side scrolling, awful controls, repetitive and boring, it was deemed to be a forgotten artifact. But, by good fortune, it was one of the (allegedly) two games that series albanian creator Petulla Pulle had as a kid.
Petulla deserves an aside. Learning to code intuitively and implementing Risk on his Casio FX-81 at the age of 6, he is not the poor boy that media wanted us to belive. Coming from a well off family, when he arrived in the US he co-created Sweet Games (now Insane Groundbreaking Games) with his friend Zachary Taylor, and they started development on Gwimbly after acquiring the Licence from a gambling bet in a pub in New York. Although his reputation being ripped apart now by the abuse accusations and toxic working enviroment, Pulle was a popular figure among gamers in the late 90's and 00's, and his advancements in the field should be recognised.
So, basically a one man job, Gwimbly finished its development in just under 2 years and came out for the PSX in August 1996, just one month before Mario 64, which eclipsed the relevance of the first game in sales. Even so, it was the alternative for the Sony owners at the time looking for a collectathon platformer in the, then, new 3rd dimension. But growing pains show all over the game, as we'll see.
Graphics:
While not being bad, a lot of the 5th generation of consoles problems are present. Textures warp and wabble, popping is noticible even in small areas, and glitches are all over the place, specially after acquiring the triple jump.
What, then, has made that Gwimbly sticks to our memories? The character designs and animations, of course. All of them, from the little Cheddar Gobblin enemies of the first level until Count Groxya, without forgetting Mr. Millipede. Even little details, like Gwimbly's iddle animations, reflect care and dedication (unlike its sequels, but we'll talk about that later).
Sound and FX:
This must be the aspect of the game that stincks the most. The constant crackling and stuttering stuck into my ears as a kid, and it certainly has not gotten better as an adult. The howling made for some funny misunderstandings (the classic line "If I had my Gwimbly gun" was supposed to say "If I had some Sweet Corn", but it made for a good meme in the episode), but it was not good even for that time. And, worst of all, while not being at Gex levels, the constant repetition of lines and screams from Gwimbly got annoying real quick.
Music is nothing to write home about. The Corn Hills theme was catchy, but after the 100th time you got tired of it. The use of Theremin and Erhu instruments was more innovative than effective in the latter levels. Only the Menu Music has had some lasting effects, even musically referenced in the Celeste Soundtrack.
Gameplay:
Gwimbly is a short game, and I think that's a positive. With only 50 Corn Cans to collect, with four main levels, a central Hub and the last Can Count Castle, it didn't worn out its welcome with its 8-10 hour average run.
Nowadays, Gwimbly feels cluncky to control. The comitment you had to endure with some of the jumps is incredible, and the run and jump distance seems inconsistent. But, worst offender of all, the camera was not good. And who ever thought that recentering the camera with the X button was a good idea.
Levels:
- Silly-corn Valley: Everybody remembers the central Hub and tutorial level. Mr Millipede serves as our side kick, and the one who teach us how to jump, roll and make the Gwimbly Stimbly, all while staring us with his glassy eyes. You could skip its advices, and if you did not talk to him once it was recognised in the access to the final level, where he would ask you who you were.
- Icy Corn Flakes: a little fun snow level, the developers made the wise decission to not have icey controls (EDIT: it seems that it was programmed into the level, but it was badly implemented so you walked normally). The 10 Corn Cans here are not very difficult, and the Uni-Corn boss was cute.
- Corncob swamp: The swim level. Enough said.
- The Corn Maze: I still have nightmares from this level. Not by the theming or "spooky" music, but from the level design. The constant back-tracking, the Ghosts of Cornstmass Past and specially the, not one, but 2 Corn Cans that made you speedrun the maze almost made me quit the game more than once. In the second run of the maze, Pulle admitted that he put the least amount of time possible WITHOUT CONSIDERING the animation of the door opening, so it was literally no possible to get it unless you glitched through the invisible wall at the beginning.
- Corn Field of Lava: the amazing thing about this level is that, after activating the volcanoe, the entire level was transformed and filled with pop-corn. Be sure to grab the Can at the beginning of the level, after the jumping rocks, because it will not be possible to grab it after the level remodelling (probably by mistake).
- Can Count Castle: I wish I could say the best was reserved for last, but the tight platforming of this level was a frustration factory from start to finish. The only positive is the Final Boss, and the secret animation if you collected all Corn Cans (and the reason why it was made a PG 13+).
Conclusion and Legacy:
Gwimbly in its original state is a game that lives best in our memories, rather than our current consoles. Luckily, its amazing fandom has corrected many of the graphical glitches and performance issues via patches and ROMs that enhance the expirience. But the level design, even with its good moments, is not something you can easily fix.
The inmediate sequel (Gwimbly 2 on Corny Land // Gwimbly 2: The Adventure of Gwimble and Millipede in PAL regions), that came out just a year after the 1rst game release, pullished some aspects of the original while inexplicably substracting from others. The most glaring example is the introduction of fall damage.
Gwimbly 3 Revengance, which came out in late 2003, was a terrible disappointment. It mutted the sparckly colors of the first two entries, and the introduction of Gwimbly Guns and the absence of Mr.Millipede (who was going through some stuff at the time) left a sour taste for the fans of the franchise for what was its final entry. The development hell that Gwimbly 4 went through, and the aforementioned Pulle accusations, put Gwimbly in a weird spot for the next 15 years.
Let's just hope Insane Groundbreaking Games make something with the face of the company. I do not want a fighting game from Gwimbly. I want a new platformer, and, if one can dream, the first truly good game of the saga.

Good morning,
My name is Jessica, I'm the owner of a Healthcare staffing agency in Texas and I do independent recruiting as well. I need help with candidates!! I'm a single mother with limited income I started this business as a why to generate income for my family. The resume banks are expensive so I wanted to see if there were other cost efficient and budget friendly ways to locate candidates. I have a ATS and it post on job boards for me but I'm not getting any applicants well no qualified ones should I say. So I'm reaching out for tips and tricks if anyone is willing to share. Thanks in Advance.

I have seen a lot of questions about fast passive income, but I don’t see many about how to save money. Earlier, I decided to set aside some money to avoid spending it. However, when I see the amount I have been saving, I always think of ways to spend it, like traveling, buying a motorcycle or a new PC, or even buying a house.
I don’t have recurring passive income, but I do generate some passive income every year without a lot of issues, around $2k.
I like to say that money is not a problem, but I cannot manage to save more than $20k a year.
I grew up in a family that worked to pay off debts every month, buying everything on credit cards or loans.
I don’t have a huge loan, only $4k, and I have assets to cover this debt anytime if needed. I have been investing and own a few shares of Brazilian, US, and French stocks.
However, taxes and the economy are my enemies of my income there. The only way I have found to save money is by buying things that I really like, such as motorcycles, PCs, iPhones, travels and a House.
I read a lot about this subject , and always saw that buy a house is the best way to force yourself to save money, put it in a patrimonial object. Futhermore, I like this sector of investiment. I just don’t like the idea to have my money blocked .
Consequently, I would love to save more to gain financial freedom from my job. My goal is to have $100k in ETF funds, $50k in Brazilian government bonds, and $50k in the S&P 500 for my retirement.
So, the question is: how can I save money? Should I save 10%, 20%, or 30% of my total income? Or should I invest it in a business founded by myself? Or continue spend it? Or buying houses?
I even wrote an article on my blog: How I do to Save Money ?

Phil Aston: Hello and welcome to the Now Spinning Magazine podcast with me, Phil Aston. And in this episode, I’m absolutely delighted to have with me Tony Martin, one of the UK’s most underrated rock vocalists. You’ve had a really varied career, but what we’re going to talk about today specifically is Black Sabbath and the new “Anno Domini” box set. So, welcome, Tony. Thank you so much for joining me.
Tony Martin: Thank you. And thank you for having me on the show. Very cool.
Phil Aston: A bit of context, because I think this is kind of helpful for you. My son is 30 now, but when he was 15, he set up a Facebook group, kind of saying, “One day, please can we have the Tony Martin Black Sabbath albums released?” That was 15 years ago. He was still at school, half his lifetime ago. And I think in the early time when he set this up, he may have reached out to you and you might have said something like, “I don’t think it’s gonna happen, Dan.” And here we are, all these years later, and it’s not only happened, but it comes out this Friday. How does that feel to know that these albums are now going to be available again?
Tony Martin: Well, first of all, well done to your son. It took 15 years, but he got it done. To be honest, there’s been a few periods when I didn’t think it was happening. In fact, about a year ago, Tony Iommi’s manager called me and said, “You know what, this is just so complicated. I don’t think we can do this.” So I was resigned to it not happening myself. It’s all to do with band politics, really. There are so many people involved or have their fingers in the pie that they all have to be on board. And there were allegiances changing all over the place, left, right, and center. So in the end, it was getting a bit tiring, but well done to Tony Iommi and BMG. My God, the patience they showed to get this thing together and actually get it out there. Wow. But how does it feel? It feels brilliant, to be honest. I’m very excited. I haven’t actually had these albums in my own hands physically for the past 25 years. I gave all mine away thinking I’d be able to get some more, and I didn’t. They just stopped making them. So to actually physically hold them again is really cool. What a great job they’ve done of it. So I’m thrilled and excited. And I’m helping out now because I’m not in the band, obviously, anymore. So I just offered my help to promote it and they said, “Great, let’s do it.”
Phil Aston: Isn’t it amazing? Because I’ve done quite a few reviews about Black Sabbath box sets and stuff, but this one, within about 12 hours, there’s literally 12,000 views of the review. The love for this period of Black Sabbath is actually huge. It’s grown. It almost feels as if the profile is higher now than it was at the time.
Tony Martin: Yeah, there is a kind of reason for that. Partly people have got over the “it’s the new guy” thing, and also it’s been 25 years since. So now we’re reaching out to a whole other group of people, in addition to those that were already there. But to the outside world, it looks like there was a huge gap, and to me it felt like a huge gap. But actually, the fans were always there. I’ve been waiting myself as well to get this back out there. And it’s just band politics, really. That’s all it is.
Phil Aston: Because you had that period when it was almost as if this part of Sabbath’s history was hidden because of band politics. None of this really happened, which I think probably stirred up more interest and kind of people wanting to find out more.
Tony Martin: Yeah, it could be. It’s an old famous thing, you know, if something ain’t around for a while, people start talking about it. But yeah, it’s a strange thing, the music business. You’re either in fashion or you’re not. But I am just thrilled that they’ve got around it. Just the patience they’ve shown to actually put this together. At one point they were just saying, “We can’t do it.” But I’m really chuffed anyway.
Phil Aston: I imagine there’s been compromises along the way. Lots of fans probably don’t understand how complicated the politics and all the different licenses and everything that goes on over the years, they become more and more entangled. People say, “Where’s Eternal Idol?” But of course, that was a different record label. Different people own it.
Tony Martin: Yeah, absolutely. It’s owned by somebody else. And also Eternal Idol, or “Eternal Idiot,” as we call it, was kind of reissued not that long ago. Really.
Phil Aston: That’s right. With the two CD version, wasn’t it?
Tony Martin: Yeah. So they were kind of thinking, “Well, there’s no real panic because that’s already been done and let’s just move on.” Because that would have wrapped them up in contracts for centuries, I think. I can’t even think that they’ll ever get them to let that go. But they were struggling to get the people involved with these four albums to make up their minds and do stuff. I’ve been all for it all the way along, I have to say. Obviously, because it’s my career, my history. It’s not just the band’s history. It’s ten years of my life that went AWOL. So, yeah, I’ve been up for it all the way along, but some people don’t and it’s taken them a while to get on board.
Phil Aston: I think it’s fantastic. The first one was Headless Cross. You joined one of the biggest rock bands with all that history behind it. You were an established singer with the Alliance. But this was a chance, as you say, with Eternal Idol, you went in and it was already prepared. You sang it, but this one was where you could really put your mark on it, your personality lyrically as well as musically. Can you remember what it was like actually being at the beginning of that? Did you feel comfortable around Iommi and Powell and thinking, “Right, what kind of lyrics am I going to do by Headless Cross?”
Tony Martin: Yeah, I was comfortable by then. Well, kind of. The thing is, with Eternal Idol, if I can just backstep a little bit. The Eternal Idol wasn’t the first call up. The first call up was in 1986 when they were doing the Seventh Star with Glenn Hughes. And that scared me to death because I can’t sing like Glenn Hughes. Nobody can sing like Glenn Hughes. They put me on standby back then, so I’d sort of tentatively had an introduction to Tony Iommi. Then in ’87, they got me in for the audition, and that was the next introduction to Tony Iommi. But because Eternal Idol was already written, that gave me a whole year plus a bit more to find out what this thing was. What the hell was I supposed to do? So just doing Eternal Idol like that was fine by me because I didn’t have to discover anything myself back then. It gave me a chance to get my feet in. So by the time it got to Headless Cross, now I know all the guys, and I kind of know what’s expected of me. I still had to find the “me” that I needed to find. I went around it the only way I could, by focusing on things I was interested in. I couldn’t do the lyrics and melodies that Geezer was writing for Ozzy because that was a generation before me. The stuff that Ronnie was doing was fantastic, but I couldn’t get inside his head. So I had to think about what I was going to do. I had an interest in the old gothic death stuff, like Dracula and Frankenstein, Mary Shelley type writing, and of course, in England, we have Shakespeare. Nobody speaks English like that anymore, that old English text. I thought, “Old English text, gothic death, and Black Sabbath. That might work.” So I put them all together and came up with Headless Cross, which is where I lived. I lived in a village called Headless Cross.
Phil Aston: Yeah, you put that on the map. They weren’t pleased about it. The most recognition I’ve got is my name on a bus stop. And Cozy Powell thought the album needed more death, didn’t he?
Tony Martin: Oh, that’s true. That’s actually true. We were recording “When Death Calls,” and he was in the studio playing, and he suddenly stopped. We went, “You alright?” He went, “Yeah, just remind me, what’s this song called again?” I said, “It’s called When Death Calls.” He said, “I don’t think there’s enough death in it.” And he carried on playing. So, okay, maybe he’s taking the piss, but isn’t it such a great sounding album? As Tony Iommi says, he never left Black Sabbath. So when people criticize him, saying, “You should change the name or whatever,” he never left. So it was still Black Sabbath. The riffs, the guitar sound was reaching new peaks of excellence around this time.
Because when it was just him and Ozzy, for example, it was guitar, that was it. When Geoff Nichols joined during the Dio period, it introduced a few more keyboard things. That allowed Iommi to play solos against those keyboard pads and chords. And then you come along and start sticking 50 tracks of vocal harmonies on it, like in Anno Mundi and stuff like that. It just kept developing. Sabbath isn’t really known for vocal harmonies and keyboards, but underneath that was still Tony Iommi. And it still sounded like Sabbath. We were happy to do that. We just wanted to make Tony happy and do the best for him. It was his band. So we were happy to seek out that Sabbath sound and make sure it did what it said on the tin. A couple of times, like with the Seventh Star thing, he ventured a little bit away from it. Songs like Heart Like a Wheel don’t really make the Black Sabbath sound, but it’s still good stuff. I have great respect for all of the eras that went before. I had to sing all of the songs. So I do have great respect for it. And it’s been an honor, you know, like being part of the whole story. But he was the only one that stuck it out. And we respected him for that. You’re right, they did ask him to change a couple of times. He said, “No, I can’t change now.”
Phil Aston: The next one, if I pronounce this right, it’s Tyr.
Tony Martin: Yeah.
Phil Aston: Because when it came out, me and my friends, actually, because there was no Internet back then and nowhere to go and check it, we did call it Tyr. To be.
Tony Martin: Yeah, Tyr.
Phil Aston: Watch you find in Birmingham. You know what I mean? So it actually rhymes with beer, doesn’t it?
Tony Martin: It is, yeah. Actually, it’s Tiw, which is Scandinavian for the son of Odin or something.
Phil Aston: Well, this is almost as close, probably, to Sabbath getting into almost a concept album. Isn’t it? This is a collection of songs that in another time and space you probably as a band would have gone out and performed the whole thing.
Tony Martin: Yeah, it wasn’t meant that way, but they were struggling to find a name for the album. We were recording and getting towards the end and the management called us up and said, “We really need a name for this album.” And Cozy said, “I’ve got one. Let’s call it Satanic Verses.” We went, “What, like Salman Rushdie thing?” He said, “Yeah, it would be great publicity.” We said, “Yeah, but we’ll all be dead.” So we did struggle, but they happened across the artwork. We’d done Anno Mundi, we’d done Gates of Valhalla and all that sort of stuff. They went, “What if… Tyr?” It was fine by me. So it took on the Viking sort of theme. By that time, I was thinking, once I’d done Headless Cross and started to have an interest in the Vikings and stuff. As you know, the Vikings haven’t been particularly good for us. They came over and stole all our women and sheep and whatever. But I had an interest in them as well. So I was thinking, every culture, every religion has its dark side. There’s always a devil type in a god type. I thought we could go around the world and I could do this. You could pick up on all sorts of cultures and pick out the dark side of various things. But it was the last kind of… I still did that with various other songs and various other artists. But Tyr was leaning towards that theme.
Phil Aston: It’s an excellent album. Then of course, the strangeness of the politics in Sabbath. Dehumanizer comes along and Dio re-enters the scene. You obviously had an opportunity because every cloud has a silver lining. You can go off and do your solo album at this time. But you did kind of like… It sounds like it was almost a forced relationship, the way that he was and he wasn’t. I mean, how was that period for you? Because you did demo some of the tracks, didn’t you?
Tony Martin: Firstly, it was a shock. I didn’t see that coming at all. Literally just walking out the door to the next writing rehearsals. My managers called up and said, “They don’t want you to go.” From what I recently found out, although I had my suspicions, Tony Iommi said the record label just wasn’t supporting it. They weren’t getting behind us at all. Then they started banding about all different names and stuff, and Ronnie’s name came up. They thought they’d give it a go. He said it was all on and off all the time. After they let me go, it wasn’t too long before Tony called me back and said, “Can you come back?” I said, “No, I can’t. I’m doing my solo album.” More time went by, and he called me back again and said, “Are you sure you can’t come back?” I said, “I’m doing my solo album. I really can’t.” He said, “Do you want to come down and try?” So I did. I went down and tried putting my voice on some of the songs, but it would have meant rewriting everything, and they weren’t going to do that. So I said, “The best thing is if you finish this with Ronnie, get this done and out of the way, then maybe we can talk again later.” So that’s kind of what happened. By that time, I’d done my solo album, which I wanted to get as far away from the Sabbath thing as I could at the time. I went back to doing what the Alliance and some of the bands I’d been with, that middle-of-the-road AOR type stuff. But when they called me back to Sabbath, Polydor dropped my solo album like a brick. They said, “We can’t do this if you’re going to go back with them.” So that got stopped. It’s so confusing. By the time I got back with the guys to Cross Purposes, it didn’t feel that much of a gap for me, because I’ve been talking to them and working with them through the Dehumanizer thing.
Phil Aston: Stylistically, that album, because it was on the IRS label, I know some people have said, “Well, it should be in there.” Stylistically, musically, it’s very different. I mean, you take it out. These four albums in this set, excluding Eternal Idol, they sound like a progression. Dehumanizer sounds like a kind of sidestep. Even the way the riffs are done in the songs, it’s changed. You take the vocalist out, but the music continued. You took you out and it was very different.
Tony Martin: I suppose it does a bit. If I go back and think over it, I guess that’s what it was. It was kind of an interruption into the flow of things. When we were doing Tyr, I thought we were doing really well. I thought we were onto something. Dehumanizer, in that sort of respect, does feel a little bit like an interruption. But there was some good stuff on there. Ronnie’s always been a good singer. I don’t quite know how they feel about it, but it was kind of nothing to do with me. I just let them get on with it.
Phil Aston: After that, Cross Purposes is probably, out of the four albums in this set, my personal favorite. Geezer’s back in the band now, so you’ve got his bubbling bass in there. And again, lyrically, it’s all you. Did you feel any kind of, “Oh, Geezer’s back. Will he want to help out?”
Tony Martin: I did ask. He just said, “No, you can do it.” So I just carried on.
Phil Aston
The reason why I love this album is that it’s varied. A lot of people think of Black Sabbath as the Godfathers of heavy metal, and heavy metal is always heavy metal. But if you think back to albums like Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in the seventies, they weren’t all heavy metal. There were all sorts of things on there. There were keyboards and light and shade. This, I felt, connected to that album, because you had light and shade on it. So there were more dynamics in the lyrical delivery and the song delivery, in the way that Iommi is weaving his riffs around the melodies. What are your thoughts looking back on this album now?
Tony Martin: I think you’ve just summed it up. It did sort of shift up a notch. Not only that, but the sound they were getting with Leif Mases producing it, it sort of grew up. It lifted somehow out of what they’d done before. It felt like, “Oh, this sounds good.” The songwriting and the exploring we were doing with the songs and stuff. At the time, Geezer Butler said that’s the best album he’s ever been on. He never said that again, but he said it at the time.
Phil Aston: I can imagine him saying just that.
Tony Martin: But it was good. Having Bobby Rondinelli in the band as well. Technically amazing. Brilliant player. His drums close in, and he plays with his wrists. Very technical. Whereas Cozy’s drums are stretched out far and wide. He’d lean over and hit them. But great to have them both in. What an honor. I mean, it’s Geezer Butler as well.
Phil Aston: When you got to South America, Bill Ward was in for a few gigs, wasn’t he? That must have been quite surreal. Bill Ward and Geezer playing songs like Headless Cross, which they had nothing to do with.
Tony Martin: They had nothing to do with. We were kind of weird because once we’d started to get Geezer and Bill back in, they wanted to start doing more of the older songs. That just makes you look, read between the lines going, “What’s going on? Where’s this going?” Once it’s happened to you, you know it. Then you’re reading between the lines. You start to feel it. Then you go, “Ah, right.” You can feel it. They’re clearing up. I did ask if they were going to do a reunion with Ozzy. Iommi was always denying it. Said, “No, no, we’re not doing that.” But I didn’t mind. The reason for that is because I knew what I could do in the future then. I thought, “Well, if they just tell me, that’s fine. Cause then I can plan.” The first time it was a shock and I didn’t know what to do. But I was kind of keyed up for it the next time. But he kept going. They got Bill in. I love Bill. I think he’s brilliant. We did some shows with him. But for some reason, and I don’t know what it is, I mean, I can tell you Iommi loves Bill. He regaled so many stories about when they were out there and how funny it was. I never understood why they never gave him time to get back in it. When you think of Def Leppard, they made a drum kit for a one-armed drummer.
Phil Aston: Yes, very true.
Tony Martin: Surely they can find time to get Bill settled back in. Whatever problems they’ve got. I mean, come on.
Phil Aston: You would think, yeah, very true.
Tony Martin: Get on with it. I thought, “Right, this is going to go south again.” But it didn’t. We carried on with Forbidden, and then Cozy came back after his accident. It was really up and down. Confusing. People in and out. During the time I was in the band, there were eight different lineups.
Phil Aston: It was very much a revolving door, wasn’t it? Before we move on, I just want to ask, because I know a lot of fans ask this. In the booklets in these box sets, there’s an image of Cross Purposes Live. That was a VHS tape and a CD. Is there a reason why that wasn’t included in some way? Is that game politics?
Tony Martin: I did ask about that, and they were just keen to get on with it. They said, “Come on, let’s go, let’s do it.” What they told me was that they’re going to take their time now to see what else they can gather and do an additional thing to this along the way with more of that in it. With the Cross Purposes Live and some other stuff. There’s a track that I recorded with them when Eddie Van Halen came and did Evil Eye.
Phil Aston: Yes, yeah, Evil Eye, wasn’t it?
Tony Martin: Yeah. I used to take the track out. I had it everywhere. Writing sessions, recording sessions, rehearsals. I just happened to be there. I didn’t even know who was coming. Iommi just turned up with Eddie Van Halen. I went, “Holy hell, it’s Eddie Van Halen. What’s he doing here?” He did some rehearsals with us and then disappeared. Never saw him again. But I got the recordings of the rehearsals that we did.
Phil Aston: Oh, wow.
Tony Martin: So I sent them to Tony Iommi. I said, “Use these. Get these on.” He said, “No, no, we can’t.” The reason they said was anything that has the slightest newness about it looks like a new Black Sabbath track or album track. They’re not allowed to release anything new under the Black Sabbath name. So even if it’s historical, they couldn’t allow it. It’s really weird.
Phil Aston: That means there must be lots of live stuff recorded. More bands were recording live stuff from the nineties onwards that you just couldn’t work on because it would go out under the Black Sabbath name.
Tony Martin: Not just live stuff. I’ve got about eight tracks that we never released. Just from the writing sessions and rehearsals and stuff that we used to do. They just can’t get out. They just won’t allow it.
I don’t understand. Well, I kind of understand. When you’re trying to protect your name, your mark, your image, your everything, which is where the band politics comes in, they won’t allow you to do anything that they think. And there’s all kinds of… Everybody from Ozzy to Dio to everybody. They don’t want their thing to be diluted or taken away. I do understand that. There are people involved all along the way that have an objection of some kind or another.
Phil Aston: But I guess, hopefully, this box set’s going to sell out really quickly and will show there’s a demand for this material and for this part of Black Sabbath history. There’s a lot of love for it. A lot of people worked really hard within it, like yourself. They’re great albums, wonderful songs. If there’s other music waiting in the wings, whereas we all get older, thinking through the eyes of the fan, it would go down so well, wouldn’t it? But I am, as you are, very grateful that these four albums have arrived in a box.
Tony Martin: Yes, it’s an important thing for me. It’s an important thing for the band, and it’s a great thing for the fans. I’m thrilled. It’s been an honor to be part of the story. I love the fact that it’s out there now. They did say there is no limit to the box sets. They have sold out on day one.
Phil Aston: I’m not surprised.
Tony Martin: They said the way they do it is they tend to poll the outlets and stuff and say, “How many do you think you can sell?” And they put their numbers in, and they’ve gone way past that. So now they’ve got to go back and produce more. There’s no limit to it. I love what they’ve done. There’s more in the box set than just the albums. Posters, programs, and everything.
Phil Aston: And then Forbidden. I’ll be honest, Tony, when I heard this for the first time back in the day, I didn’t like it. I tried, but I didn’t like it. My son liked it because I think probably because his dad didn’t. But now the remix, it’s as if someone’s released the drums and the guitars. It sounds like a Black Sabbath album. It sounds fantastic, doesn’t it?
Tony Martin: It does. It’s brilliant. I love the fact that they’ve dismantled it and put it back in a way that they couldn’t or didn’t with the other three. Forbidden needed it for all kinds of reasons. It was done under a sort of cloud where a lot of us weren’t really into it very much. But it was also an attempt at trying to give Sabbath a kind of acceptable twist to the youth. It didn’t work.
Phil Aston: The nineties were weird, weren’t they? The nineties were strange for heavy rock.
Tony Martin: The problem was we were fast heading towards great new bands like Nirvana and eventually Green Day and Metallica doing stuff. We were going and they were trying to change the sound to fit in. It didn’t work. We didn’t think it would. But there are people out there that love Forbidden as it is. I said that to Iommi. Last time I saw him, there are people out there that love it. He said, “They’ll probably love this version now.” But shaking the chains, guilty as hell, rusty angels, forbidden. And of course, “Loser Gets It All” is a great track. That wasn’t even on the album originally.
Phil Aston: It’s brilliant.
Tony Martin: Yeah. Strange. I absolutely love it now. It does sound like a Black Sabbath album. It sounds like it should be there in amongst the others. They’ve done a great job. Tony and his engineers have really pulled it together. It’s slightly more guitar and slightly less keyboard. They’ve done Cozy’s drums. Fantastic job on those.
Phil Aston: They’re just unleashed, aren’t they?
Tony Martin: Yes. They haven’t changed anything. They’ve mixed it and given it a new attitude, which is brilliant. They’ve given it more space. It sounds bigger. I just love what they’ve done to it. I’m really proud of it now. I didn’t like it then. There’s still a couple of tracks where I would love to have gone back in and…
Phil Aston: Yeah, you know.
Tony Martin: I thought at the time, because I was that off it at the time, my head just wasn’t quite there. A couple of tracks I thought I could have done better. I did sort of say when they were doing it, “Can I go back in?” They said, “No.”
Phil Aston: I suppose because that might edge towards it being a new recording then.
Tony Martin: Yeah, tricky. I’m not going to tell you which tracks it is, but there were a couple in there that I wasn’t quite happy with. But on the whole, it’s a great job they’ve done.
Phil Aston: Because when you were playing live, there were more songs from your period in Sabbath coming into the set, weren’t there? You were a unique vocalist in many ways for the band. You could cover Ozzy, Dio. You probably could have done Ian Gillan. Anything. You could have the ultimate set list, really, going through every era.
Tony Martin: That was a bit of a mistake. I told them I could sing anything, really. They thought, “What can we give him to sing?” They threw all sorts of stuff at me. I had a shot. Fortunately, I’ve got the kind of voice that can get around most things, and that’s a result of being in so many different kinds of music. I’ve been involved in everything from reggae to rock.
Phil Aston: Who were your key vocal influences growing up? As you say, outside of this Black Sabbath badge, your voice can go in any direction. So who were your influences? Was it blues, soul, rock?
Tony Martin: It kept changing. Everything I listened to, I thought, “That’s good. That’s good.” Each couple of years, something else took my attention. I’d really pour my soul into it. When I started off with reggae, believe it or not, I worked with Musical Youth and Dexys Midnight Runners in the studio. I was a guitarist back then. Then I loved blues. I got into prog rock bands like Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull. Then it shifted to Emerson, Lake & Palmer. That led to Rush and bands like that. Then I had to come down out of that prog rock technical stuff because Sabbath is much more honest and basic and straightforward. To a point. When you’re in the band and you find out how he does it, it’s stunning. I never even gave it a thought. I thought, “It’s got to be easy.” It wasn’t easy at all. Iommi can put seven, eight different riffs into one song, and each one of the riffs could be a song on their own.
Phil Aston: Very true.
Tony Martin: So, wow. You get your head around it. It’s weird. Plus, the time signatures he was throwing at us. There was a 14/4 and a 15/8 or something he was throwing at us. How he gets his head around it, I just don’t know. When I saw him a few weeks ago, he said, “You did a really good job on this.” I said, “Thanks, man.” He said, “I actually don’t know how you sang over some of this stuff.” I said, “Neither do I.”
Phil Aston: Just mad, isn’t it? You could try anything. I might have thought, “That means you might be able to put some of the songs in that Ozzy couldn’t do into the set. Or I can try something that I’ve never been able to do before because Tony says he can do anything.”
Tony Martin: It’s because I showed willing. I told them I’d have a go. And I did have a go. I did put into it. The songs, the writing, the live shows, whatever. I kind of made a rod for my own back in some ways because it was hard flicking between all of the different vocal techniques. But I did my best. It sort of came across okay. The problem is when you try to do stuff like that, it can sound a bit like a tribute act. But we got it nailed, I think. Especially having people like Cozy Powell, Geezer Butler, and all those guys in the band. We were willing to seek out that Sabbath sound, and we were conscious of it. So we were all aiming for the same thing. From outside, it might have looked like a chaotic mess. But on the inside, it all had a focus. We were all willing to give it a go. That’s what I think they saw in me. I knew they liked my voice, but I think that’s what they saw, a willingness to have a go and see if you can make it work. All those different time signatures and riffs that I had to go, looking back, to me, it’s Black Sabbath. Like,
Phil Aston I’m a Deep Purple fan, and every lineup of Deep Purple is still Deep Purple. I know Black Sabbath, there’s lots of politics in the way some of the fans look at it. But I think, which is why they had Heaven and Hell later on instead of Black Sabbath, because of the politics. But listening to these four albums, one after the other, you brought to life Viking mythology and song. More death. Just your passion and the way you projected the lyrics and your phrasing makes these albums unique. An important part of the Sabbath story. Finally, do you feel like this outpouring of love for this lineup is validating everything? Any doubt that might have been back then?
Tony Martin: Yeah, doesn’t it just? The biggest validation is from Tony Iommi himself. It wasn’t regarded that highly until he sat and listened to it without the bickering going around. When I went down a few weeks ago, he said, “You did a great job on this. There’s fantastic songs on here.” I said, “I know.” It’s just that validation that he gives it. The fact that the fans are returning to it. The fact that we’ve got new fans coming to it. Whole new record labels. I think it’s Rhino in America. It’s BMG in the UK, Europe. The record labels are coming back to it and getting behind it. They see something in it. The management sees something in it. So it’s all coming together. Which is a shame because I’m not in the band anymore.
Phil Aston Who knows? Maybe you and Tony will think, “It’d be great if some of this other stuff can come out at some point and we don’t have to wait another 25 years.”
Tony Martin: If he was going to do that, he’d say, “Let’s just write some new stuff.” But from what I’ve been told, Tony’s touring dates are done now. He won’t be going out on the road again. That’s probably out of the question for writing. I did tell him I was interested if he wants to do something. But he’s got so much going on. He’s still busy. Doing stuff. He had that ballet, the Black Sabbath ballet.
Phil Aston: Yeah, that’s true.
Tony Martin: Never saw that coming. No, he’s working on all kinds of stuff. He’s writing new material for something else now.
Phil Aston: So what about you, Tony? Have you got any plans for another solo album?
Tony Martin: I never actually stopped. For the past 25 years, my career took me into the studio and writing for people. My voice appears on 89 albums and projects now. It’s been good for me. I owe everything to Black Sabbath because that’s how the world got to hear my voice. People know what they’re talking about when they talk to me. “Can you write, can you sing on this?” They already know what they’re hearing or expecting. I always try to make it better than what they give me in the first place. A lot of that is me in the studio, and I’m happy, and I still am, happy doing that. But I do tend to choose what I do these days.
Phil Aston: Yeah, that makes sense.
Tony Martin: So I’m still doing the odd thing for people now. I did have a solo album a couple of years ago called Thorns.
Phil Aston: Great album.
Tony Martin: Yeah, totally unknown guitarist from America, Scott McClellan. I only met him because he kept badgering me on Facebook. He kept sending me stuff. I was like, “Go away.” He said, “Listen to this. What about this one?” In the end, I listened to it and it was brilliant. So I gave it a go and it turned out really well. But then Covid interrupted that and we couldn’t get out there with it. Some countries were saying, “Yeah, you can come,” and other countries were saying, “No, you can’t.” It all got distracted. I haven’t finished with Thorns because they wanted to do a vinyl for it. They said we had to take some tracks off to get it to fit on the vinyl. I don’t want to take any tracks off.
Phil Aston: Make it a double.
Tony Martin: Yeah, make it a double. Write some more. I wasn’t prepared for that. I’m pacing up, trying to write some new songs. Scott has sent me loads. We’ve got enough tracks for Thorns 2, but I haven’t finished Thorns 1 yet. I’ve got to come back to that. I do want to finish that off and get that done. Then if we can do the next Thorns thing, who knows? We’d like to try and get it out on the road. Getting out on the road for me is so different to the Sabbath thing. The Sabbath machine is huge. They only have to mention it and all the cogs start turning all at the same time all the way around the world. It all starts fitting into place within days, within weeks. On your own, it’s different. I can’t do that. I have to hire other musicians to go out on the road and rehearse the whole thing and start again with a brand new show. It’s a lot harder for me, but I would love to get back out there. My career took me into the studio, so I’ve got more to do. But I just tend to choose now.
Phil Aston: If people want to get Thorns, is it DarkstarRecords.net? Is that the best place?
Tony Martin: No, Battle God. They are the main label. Darkstar were involved and they’re still there, but they’ve had some troubles in the past couple of years. They were on board and I did two versions of it from between the two territories. I liked that. But mostly now, Battle God is the label to grab hold of it. It’s still available and I’m still signing them. People send me the stuff to sign.
Phil Aston: But I haven’t finished yet, so there’s more to come.
Phil Aston: Brilliant. Well, thanks very much, Tony, for all of your time today. Everybody, make sure you go and get a copy on CD or vinyl of this Black Sabbath Tony Martin years box set, “Anno Domini.” It’s absolutely superb.
Tony Martin: Yeah, it is good. I’m just smiling. I think it’s brilliant.
Phil Aston: No, that’s it, isn’t it? Whatever anyone thinks, these albums are available again. People can hear just how awesome this time for Sabbath really was.
Tony Martin: Thank you. Thank you very much.
Phil Aston: All right, take care, and hopefully I’ll talk to you again in the future.
Tony Martin: Thank you. All right, Phil, thanks, mate. Cheers.
Phil Aston: Well, a huge thank you to my guest, Tony Martin. That was fantastic. I’m almost lost for words in knowing what to say to sum up that interview because I know a lot of you are really interested in this box set, “Anno Domini” by Black Sabbath, which is out on CD and vinyl. Just as I thought, it’s sold out already, but there’s going to be another pressing. I was able to ask some of the questions I know some of you have been wanting to know, like why weren’t there extra tracks? Why wasn’t the live Cross Purposes included, etc. So now you know. Some of it is really exciting because it means there might be a companion set with some outtakes or live stuff as well. That’s really exciting.
Tony Martin is a fantastic vocalist, really passionate, really imaginative with his lyrics and his vision of how he writes his music. These four albums are essential. They’re Black Sabbath albums, okay? That’s what they are. They sound like Black Sabbath albums. Wasn’t it interesting that Geezer Butler said Cross Purposes is the best album he’d ever played on? It is a truly remarkable album. But they all are: from Headless Cross, to Tyr (which I can now pronounce correctly), Cross Purposes, and Forbidden, which has been given a new lease of life. Seriously, it is incredible. Just stunning.
Thank you again to Tony Martin for joining me here on the Now Spinning Magazine podcast. Please keep spinning those discs, whether they are vinyl or CD. Check us out on the podcast. We’re on every platform you can think of, from Apple to Spotify to Amazon. Of course, we’re on YouTube. Please subscribe and check out the website at nowspinning.co.uk. Remember, music is the healer and the doctor. So take care and I’ll see you all very, very soon.
Watch the full interview here
Phil Aston Now Spinning Magazine

Hello everyone, I am a 18M turning 19 soon ( Going to University) and the person in question is already 19F ( Not going to Uni because of VISA problem). I have social communication disorder and I’m not particularly good at social dilemma. I have already done a lot of research on how to move forward but I figure I should also post on reddit as well to get some more tailor advice and input from strangers.
There is this particular girl I meet in high school at 8th grade that I really enjoyed talking to ever since I meet her. I really liked her, from our chemistry together to our similar immigrant backgrounds ( I am Chinese who is born in Vietnam, and she is Filipino. We both went to private school back in our country and in similar socioeconomic backgrounds.) to how she looks sort of like me ( Same eyes, same nose, and I also have some feminine facial features). She also are interested in similar subjects as I am, as we’re both into really into Jungian Psychology, and we’re into East Asian pop culture ( Although I am more interested in Anime while she is interested in K-pop). While there is some differences between us, for instance I am more self contained and analytical ( Very INTJ) she is less so and more carefree than I was. Perhaps because we’re very similar to each other but slightly different enough, our chemistry really work well with each other. For instance, I am usually more serious and blunt while she sort of ease the tension a little bit and make our conversation more fun and less serious. Like a comedic duo. I really like her, which is why I confessed to her in tenth grade. I am very cautious and I thought I had great but not certain chance of success, that being said I was aware of the possibility she would rather stay friends. I confessed, gave her the next day to think about it. In the morning, she hesitantly told me she would give me a chance and I was ecstatic. But by lunch time, she said she didn’t want to date me anymore and her reason was that she’s not ready and in the right place to be dating just yet. I was sad and confused as I’m not too well aware what she is referring about but she said no and I still wanted to be friends with her so I said that it’s okay and we can still be friends. For the next 6-8 month we remain friend till the end of 10th grade. She told me she going to a private school, and at that point I thought I understood why she changed her mind at dating. I wished her the best, and said she has my instagram and we could hang out if we’re free. We said goodbye and we never hangout after that.
For almost two year during our 11th grade till the end of 12th grade, I honestly just forgot about her. I was busy with school, made new friends, and don’t really used instagram much and just didn’t really have an interested in talking to her. Life just happens, and I’m not really the person who get attached or fixated on someone and I don’t think she was either. On the 2nd of May 2024 ( Almost a month ago), we just randomly meet each other on a bus. Just a crazy coincidence really, I mean I don’t use SM much and didn’t really tell anyone my schedule so no way she was stalking me. We got talking again and we still have the same chemistry between us, and of course more importantly, she is still very attractive. We’re on friendly term and so I asked her why did she reject me in 10th grade. She gave me the same answer, and I confessed that I felt guilty because I didn’t know she had to move school and it was probably for the best she said no. It wasn’t awkward at all, she smiles a little I think. We kept talking after that, I even got off the bus early to keep talking to her. Then she told me to hide because her mom is really strict about her being with a boy. I thought what?? It’s 2024 and she is 19, what is she on about. But I still complied and there was a rock we just sat on and just kept on talking for two hours until it was dark. I probably could still talk to her another hour or two but she said she had “curfew” and can’t be home to late which I thought was really weird and honestly I didn’t process when she said that so I just replied okay and nod and said I really like talking to her and want to keep talking. But no instagram, I wanted her phone number. She gave me her phone number and we just hugged and said our goodbyes.
We decided next Saturday to hangout, and Saturday came and she had to abruptly canceled it. I told her it’s fine and we can just reschedule it. She left me on read. For two day. I am diagnosed with SPCD ( one way to view it is I have autism but only the social deficit parts of ASD), and I really thought I fucked up. I really start having an existential crisis because in the past I assume people were having a good time when they didn’t. And in my head, I really thought I was experiencing a different realm of reality than her. I thought our entire relationship was a lies I made up and that I had forced her to hangout with me. After all we never hang out outside of high school, she said no to my confession, I followed her out of the bus but she didn’t want me to know where she lived, I was the one who said to hang out on Saturday but she canceled abruptly. I wrote a very long text basically apologising, and saying that it’s okay and I won’t forced her to hangouts. A day later she replied saying oh don’t overthink it, and that she will replied properly. Then a week go by, absolutely nothing. See, what I don’t understand is she doesn’t go to school, has only a part time job, how is she replying so late? Then on the 8th day she replied. She said she is very sorry and that it was unacceptable and gave me the reassurance that I didn’t fuck up. She said she still wanted to see me. We set up another time to meet, over three week since I last saw her. I saw her around 5 day ago, and I went in wanting to ask so many questions but when I saw her, my brain were so conditioned that we just talk like how we always talk to each other. But I did learn one big thing, her family are Protestant Christian. I made small talk about that but didn’t ask any personal question. Then after that we just went to her house, and we just kept yapping and yapping in the living room. We had so much fun, we almost forgot I had to leave soon cause her mom is coming home. But fuck, I was supposed to confront her but we just ended up having so much fun. Idk how to feel anymore, the more I learn about her the more I realised what a pain in the ass she is, and the more I realise maybe I shouldn’t pursue a romantic relationship. I still really like her though…
But I am thinking maybe we should just remain friends, she really is not in the right space to date right now. Beside, I really don’t think she saw me as someone to date, very sad whomp whomp. Thinking of next time I see her I’ll just actually confront and clarify and set boundary in our relationship. If she see me as a friend then I’m happy too, but my penis is not very happy. If she does like me and seek to pursue a romantic relationship then I probably have a lot of work to do.
I don’t know when we will see each other again, I saw her five days ago. After we last saw each other, she said she had a lot of fun :D so I texted that I wanted to see her again. She left me on read for the last 5 days now.
If you guys have any advice, input, comment then leave it down below.

What is Bhagwa Atheism ?

A hypocritical and privileged form of atheism that is critical against any religion (particularly Islam), but harbours sympathy for his religion in which they were born i.e. Hinduism.

Why is this sympathy?

The answer is simple ...casteism, we shall discuss this later on how this is deeply rooted in caste based privileges that facilitates such thinking. To understand this let me explain from my point of view:

According Marxism, in a feudalist/semi-feudalist/capitalist society there are two types of classes mostly, namely: the Bourgeois (the ruling class who controls the means of production and generates profit from the exploitation of working classes labour power) and The Workers (or Proletariats) (who do not own any means of production and has no power to purchase labour power of others, and they survive solely by selling their own labour power).
These classes emerge only at a certain stage in the development of the productive forces and the social division of labour, when there exists a social surplus of production, which makes it possible for one class to benefit by the expropriation of another. The conflict between classes there begins, founded in the division of the social surplus, and constitutes the fundamental antagonism in all class.

This holds true in case of several capitalist nations such as US, Canada, South Korea, etc. But however in case of India this classification becomes complicated due to yet another form of classification which effectively nullified any form of possible class conflict, 'Casteism'.

What is Casteism in Hinduism ?

Hindu Casteism (from material basis) is a form of hereditary class based on hierarchal order which ensures the flow the capital to the top most caste order and control over modes of production with the help of religious decrees itself.
It's a classification which sets 'permanent classes' based on their 'assigned' modes of production and their position within it's societal superstructures according to their hierarchy set by the 'permanent' ruling classes.
Once you take birth in one of these castes (hereditary classes), you'll be automatically assigned to the forces of production according to the 'order', which you'll do for the rest of your life.
Unlike Class, Casteism severally restricted upward mobility of people belonging to the lower strata of the Caste order, exception being a few handpicked intermediate 'gate keeping' castes loyal to this system. Who were sometimes rewarded by promotion, to become ruling classes itself.

So what changed this ?

Pre-arrival of British colonisation, caste and class were very much indistinguishable. Apart from ruling class there were hand picked bourgeois intermediate classes (vaishya) who were in direct service to the upper caste (sometimes the roles were reversed). The proletarian class (shudra and pariahs) were pretty much same as their european counterparts, lacked capital and hence no control over their means of production, in addition to that they also faced inhumane discrimination because of the caste in which they were born in. Thus were looked down upon as inferior subhumans.
This discriminatory system ensured poverty of the lower caste and prosperity of the top order, despite the lower caste comprising 90% of the population, as well as guaranteed cheap labour and exploitation of the working class 'caste'.
However with the introduction of colonial capitalism by Britishers the modes of production of old feudal order 'fused' with it to become a semi-industrial semi-feudal economy. This is when for the first time the European styled working classes began to take shape in India, parallel to hereditary classes that is casteism. This also introduced new bougeois classes within every community irrespective of their caste, but it's topic for another discussion.
Irrespective of the changes the older hereditary classes still affected this new order, those belonging to upper caste still had access to privileged jobs, better positions and capitals, hence were comparatively in better & prosperous position to that of those belonging to the lower strata of the older caste based order. With the introduction of 'English Education Act 1835' and later 'Macaulay Committee 1854' by Britishers, it further cemented caste order within this new colonial administration, ensuring the hierarchy of the upper caste and exploitation of oppressed castes.

Privileged classes and Caste blind class struggle

In words of Thomas Babington Macaulay:

"We (Britishers) should try to create a class of people, who would work as translators between the people who we are ruling and us, even though they may look like Indians by color; but their likes and dislikes, morals and thinking will be like an Englishman"

As, we can see the British were ok with the casteism as long as it ensured their hold and smooth management of their empire. Sure they helped abolishing the gut wrenching misogynistic practices such as 'Sati' but made almost zero effort to abolish caste system and untouchability (as this would mean they'll loose insubordination of intermediate 'gate keeping' classes that were in service to the British crown.
This new Intermediate urban classes had privileges to several rights within colonial administration in comparison to ordinary classes, however as we have mentioned earlier that with the introduction of colonial capitalism majority of castes further split into binary classes, economically forward and backward classes (note : this was only in case of upper and intermediate castes, majority of oppressed castes were still under poverty). The economically forward classes were infact the privileged classes and the economically backward classes began to fall in the borderline category between Upper-intermediate castes and Lower castes.
And this where 'caste blind' atheism, secularism, and socialism originates from. Who saw capitalism as well as colonialism as cruel system/occupation with respect to their material conditions but failed to emancipate and recognise inhumane treatment faced by those below their classes.
But does this mean that they were barred same as oppressed communities in upward mobility within this colonial capitalism?
No, They still had access to capitalist progress and upward mobility within the society. Simply put,

Casteism filtered oppressed castes from upward mobility within this new capitalist order while capitalism ensured that there will be limited progressiveness within the upper caste friendly circles.

So, whenever an economically backward class member transitioned into economically forward class they carried out his former progressive social ideas to their new found social position within society, while simultaneously giving up their resistance to capitalism. This new default ideology was known liberalism.
British colonial administration in India had many parallels with Apartheid system, but that is debate for another topic.

Consequences of Caste blindness in other '–isms'

With important positions still in access to powerful 'caste blind' and 'casteist' members of the society, they began to clash for power struggle. But they all had one commonality, they didn't gave up their caste identity.
During independence this power struggle began to materialise in two types of ideologies basically – 'caste blind' Leftism and 'meritocracy' based liberalism/conservativism but non of them were seriously against at each others throat as they were getting equal opportunities for their personal betterment.
But, what did the oppressed caste proletariats gain from this? Nothing.
They only got a chance at betterment when Dr. Ambedkar, Jyotiba Phule, Savitri Bai Phule,etc began to make efforts at upliftment of them. However their efforts lacked anti-capitalist approach which emphasized less on capitalist oppression more on caste based emancipation. Which later proved detrimental in their efforts.

Modern day India and caste based wealth inequality

After the ( ½) implementation of Mandal Commission and Naxal Uprising, it began to perturb this harmonic 'clash' between conservatives and progressive left-liberal dynamics as it began to inject more and more political conciousness within the oppressed communities for reservations and political participation.
This is where the concept of savarna meritocracy, comes forth.

Illusion of Meritocracy

Meritocracy is a belief that affirmative actions results in positive results and vise versa in reality is a capitalist hypothesis, a fallacy which fuels the illusion that we are in a merit-based system.

Meritocracies tend to stratify over time. Successful people will pass on their wealth and privileges to their children and can perpetuate a widening inequality of opportunities. It can lead to the misplaced belief that only their talents and hard work account for their success, neglecting the support they have received. — Chan Chun Sing, Min. of Education, Singapore

This meritocratic illusion began to impose predetermined conditions which were biased and opaque on underprivileged candidates, missing to match their criterion in fixed amount of time means ruining of candidate's dreams. In other words it was an underhand tactics to filter out 'representation based/unfavourable candidates' and simply stereotyping them as 'unworthy', disregarding the unequal support the competing candidates got due to their material conditions and pretends that they 'reward the best of the best,' also overlooking the possibility of discrimination faced by oppressed caste students at hands of Upper caste dominant faculties.

After 1960 more and more population of the United States spent more than one-fourth of their entire lifetime in schools, from ages two to twenty-two. As on so many other levels and ways of mass democracy, inflation had set in, diminishing drastically the content and the quality of learning: more and more young people, after twenty years in schools, could not read or write without difficulty. Schools are overcrowded, including colleges and universities. In this increasingly bureaucratized world little more than the possession of various diplomas mattered. Since admission to certain schools-rather than the consequently almost automatic acquisition of degrees-depended on increasingly competitive examinations, the word “ meritocracy“ was coined, meaning that the rising positions to be acquired in society depended on the category of the degree and on the category of the college or university where from one graduate. In reality the term “meritocracy“ was misleading. As in so many of these spheres of life, the rules that govern the practices and functions of schools and universities were bureaucratic rather than meritocratic. It is bureaucracy, not meritocracy, the categorizes the employment of people by their academic degrees. The number and the variation of degrees awarded by higher institutions grew to a fantastic, and nonsensical, extent. Besides being custodial, the purpose of institutional education was now the granting of degrees to provide instant employment. – John Lukacs (At the End of an Age)

Final Conclusion

Provided all factors what we can conclude that Bhagwa Atheism, is form of Hindu upper caste exceptionalism (Agonistic Atheism) which believes in:
•the illusionary meritocracy that their material conditions is due to the (upper) caste in which they were born in.
•hating all religious dogma belonging to all faiths (including hinduism) but still hold dear to their caste based identity, hence the sympathy for hinduism.
•merit based order, refuses to acknowledge caste discrimination and caste wealth gap, sees it as inherited inability.
•convenient switching between Atheism and minimal Hinduism.
•convenient switching between liberalism and conservativism.
Thus, it's a type of agonistic atheism which does more & more damage to gnostic atheist beliefs and their critical thinking potential, making them more and more susceptible towards theism. In case of ex-hindus it's hinduism.

Hey everyone,
I’m super excited to share something I’ve been working on: ProRes. It's an AI-powered tool that helps you create awesome resumes and cover letters with ease.
Why I Made ProRes
I help do mock technical interviews at my alma mater and I’ve seen so many talented people struggle to get interviews, not because they’re not qualified, but because their resumes and cover letters don’t do them justice. It sucks to see great folks miss out on opportunities just because their application didn’t stand out. That’s why I created ProRes - to help people showcase their skills and experience in the best possible way and boost their chances of landing those interviews.
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Give it a try and let me know what you think! Your feedback would mean the world to me as I keep working on improving the tool.
Do you think adding a “bot” that would apply to jobs on your behalf would be a cool addition?

Hello Dr. K and the HealthyGamer community,
I am seeking advice, support, and insights on how to emotionally separate and individuate from my parents later in life, which I should have done much earlier. The adult part of me knows what I need to do, but there's also a part of me that is frightened. Let me give you a snapshot of my life trajectory. The story is long, but I want to provide as much context as possible. If you prefer a short summary of my dilemma, please skip to the last paragraph. Otherwise, here is my life story:
I grew up in a well-to-do family in an East Asian country. My parents had me in their early 20s, just as their business began to flourish during the 'boom years.' Both came from very broken families. My mother experienced poverty, abuse, and neglect from her parents (she did not speak to her dad until he died and almost never acknowledges her mother). My father was the least favorite child in his family of three, dropped out of high school, ended up on the streets, and, as I learned a few years ago, was later imprisoned for fighting. My parents met when my mother was 19 and my father 21, ran away together, and built a very successful business in their early to mid-20s, becoming incredibly wealthy in a generally poor society.
Although we were affluent, my parents were never around. I started boarding at age 3 and spent most of my time outside school with my paternal grandparents and occasionally my maternal grandmother. My parents fought a lot. My mother once threatened to take me away and drove off with me with no specific destination. At one point, she told me she was divorcing my father, and we moved into another apartment for a day before returning home. She emotionally smothered me, saying she would die for me and that no one would love me as much as she did. She also hit me often over small things, sometimes in public. I thought she was better than my father, who, according to her, would remarry quickly if she left or died, subjecting me to abuse from an evil stepmother.
Despite our wealth, my mother took me out of an international school after six months and sent me to a state school known for being strict and militant. I was a 'good, smart kid' in primary school, but around age 12 or 13, I became very depressed and felt life had no purpose. I failed almost all my subjects except History and started drinking, influenced by my father's heavy drinking and a culture that tolerated alcoholism.
Then something happened that saved me in retrospect. My family emigrated to an Anglophone New World country, and I went to another boarding school. Despite experiencing racism and feeling self-conscious about my appearance, I improved academically and, by years 12 and 13, was among the best students. Between ages 13-18, I saw my father rarely, perhaps once or twice a year. My mother visited periodically, and they bought a house near the school, where I lived mostly alone. Like many first-generation immigrant kids, I handled most family matters because my parents couldn't speak English.
When it was time for university, I wanted to study law and politics at the local public university, but my father insisted I go to the UK or the US, believing a degree from the local university would not lead to a good job. He also prevented me from taking a gap year. I regret not leaving home to get a job. I applied to many universities and chose the worst-ranked one in London because I wanted to be in the city.
University was eye-opening. I discovered Europe and realized the world was much bigger than the conformist, conservative East Asian country and backwater suburbs I knew. However, my degree didn't prepare me for life, and my emotionally underdeveloped state made me miserable in adult relationships. I chose emotionally distant or abusive friends, hurt people who liked me, and did no internships or travel because I was expected to help my family during holidays. I wanted to stay in London, looked for random jobs, but had no life skills or work experience. Eventually, I returned to East Asia.
By then, my father had moved to a more cosmopolitan East Asian city, living extravagantly. I interned at a fancy company for almost a year, hoping for a job offer that never came. I soon found a job in brand consulting and finally started earning money at 23. I had a relationship with an older woman, but I was still emotionally detached. I tried freelancing, learned to impress others, and almost made enough to support myself, but I was fundamentally lost and unhappy. I experienced my first depressive episode and decided to return to London for a Master's degree. My father agreed to fund my education.
That year was the happiest of my life. I loved university, research, and being with smart, nerdy people. I met an intelligent, caring, and beautiful woman, and we moved in together. I discovered more fulfilling ways to live and found that success didn't mean working for an investment bank or being rich. I wanted to be an academic, applied for a PhD, and got in after two attempts.
Academia wasn't all rosy. The work conditions were awful, and the publish-or-perish mentality sucked the joy out of research. I loved teaching but quickly learned it mattered little at a 'research university.' I gained weight, my relationship deteriorated, arguments turned physical, and I felt worthless. The pandemic made things worse, and I felt I needed to radically change my life. My solution was to become the person my family wanted: filial, loyal, and rich. I was ready to abandon my life in London and move back to East Asia to 'stop being a loser.'
I returned home, trying to fix my family and shower them with love. I interned at a VC firm, but it clashed with my values, and I cried every day at work. I broke up with my girlfriend for someone with no emotional attachment, leading to great sex but zero intimacy. Within three months, I was broke, living in a short-term rental, and eating unhealthily. Fortunately, I had a therapist, a good friend in Shanghai, and my girlfriend gave me a second chance. I realized my family's emotional neglect contributed to my unhappiness and depression. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and medicated, which helped me move out of paralysis. I confronted my family about their past actions and my diagnosis. My mother reacted poorly, calling me names and accusing me of being a horrible son. This ordeal made me realize I needed to break away from them. What I threw away in London was actually the most valuable: a career, a family, my identity.
After confronting my mother that year, she vowed never to see me again. However, 6-8 months later, she sent me a large sum of money for my birthday. I let her back into my life, partly for financial help but also seeking proof of their love and acceptance. Things improved initially, but soon she started complaining about mistreatment by my partner. Then, my parents promised to buy me a flat and pressured me to get married. I accepted the flat for stability and freedom, ignoring their past behavior. Predictably, the flat became a tool for my mother to control me. She threatened to sue me if my girlfriend moved in and disputed the flat's ownership just weeks before the move-in date. I have a demanding job and spend much of my day dealing with this situation, processing the emotional toll of my mother's actions. I feel unsafe, violated, and confused. I hear a voice telling me this is all my fault and that I'm too weak. I know what I need to do cognitively, but emotionally I'm paralyzed. Do you understand what I mean? What would you do?

I got laid off last fall. Still looking. Every time the calendar flips to a new month I can’t believe it. Now it’s June?! After countless hours of applying, interviewing, networking, filling out the same information on a thousand different websites, declaring yet again that I’m not a protected veteran and I’ve never had a disability and my salary expectations are negotiable, for what? I have literally 0 solid prospects at this point. I’ve gotten to the end of multiple interview processes just to be told I’m their top candidate but they’ve decided not to fill the position. Every day I get 3-5 new auto-generated emails telling me I’m not qualified for jobs I’m very obviously qualified for. I’m perpetually ghosted by recruiters. Every head hunter tells me they don’t have anything right now. I’m living off my retirement savings. If this keeps going on, in one year I will literally be flat broke and 46 years old.
It really is hell.

So I have registered as self employed while having a full time job, I have had my job centre meeting and he explained the difference between gainfully employed and solely self employed ( disclaimer there was a lot to take in and this post is to make sure I've got it right amongst other things).
If I remember right gainfully employed is I declare what I earn and its subtracted from my claim. and. Solely employed (for the first time) I can make full claim and use my earnings to build the business for the first year?? Is this right?
I have been doing the gainfully employed a few months now and I'm looking at switching to just employed with the help is this possible?
I'm asking as I'm having to turn down opportunities due to working a full time job also I'm having trouble saving up for equipment I need as anytime I make some decent profit I loose most of it to my claim being reduced and as I am a full time single parent I need to ensure I can keep the house afloat and make sure my kids don't miss out (no csa from their mother).
It feels like I'm funding my own business not the income I'm generating from it.
I have messaged twice on my journal and been told they've forwarded it to the job centre and nothing back and its been over a week, in my second message I asked if there was anyone I could call directly.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Cheers. OB
Edit - just reread it and I've confused myself lol.
Can I swap from gainfully employed & self employed To Just self employed with the help that was initially offered when i had my meeting about registering as self employed.

Long story short I used to have a slightly large but natural, fitting nose.
I box and also engaged in a street fight awhile ago, which deepened the natural bump in my nose and destroyed my septum. To breathe I got surgery, but also asked for the bump to be removed in its entirety.
Here is before and after. The new nose looks uncanny.
Can it be fixed?
How much?
Is it safe surgery?
Can I continue boxing after such a revision (I think I'll wait until I finish boxing)?
https://preview.redd.it/lrtdqp0p2y3d1.jpg?width=332&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f424b688e7538eca84acca9d4f32074bdf5af3f9
https://preview.redd.it/7yixkq0p2y3d1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=af6a55dd2dd334d5832e19c5021e1a038c88856f

I used to want to be an artist, even though my major is Math. I thought I would have no connection to Art for the rest of my life because I failed to learn drawing twice due to heavy academic stress. However, computer graphics reignited my hope. But after the burst of AI-generated content (AIGC), I fell into despair again. For a while, I believed learning drawing and programming would be useless, and that I would be useless too. Now, after two years of the AI boom, I have calmed down and reflected on some common opinions about AI art and other skills affected by AI. Here, I will share my thoughts on these opinions regarding AIGC and human-made art.
Opinion 1:AI will make human artists lose their jobs quickly
my thoughts: When the first computer came out, there was a prediction by Thomas Watson, the president of IBM in 1943, that “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” Since the 1980s and the invention of the internet, computers have become tens of thousands of times faster, and learning programming is now one hundred times easier. However, the number of programmers hasn't decreased; instead, it has skyrocketed. This parallels the situation of artists since the AI boom. Even though AI is powerful, artists can still better guide AI. As the price for good artwork declines, more demand will be created. In the short term, some artists may lose their jobs, but in the long run, more demand will emerge. Additionally, current AI isn't that powerful; many logical and structural errors often occur. I also doubt whether current AI can generate animations with the stunning turbulence or fragmentations of millions of pieces that are common in Hollywood movies.
Opinion 2:AI will let a regular person to generate a stunning artwork easily
my thoughts: Although it is tempting to imagine such advancements, I have to say this may not happen in the coming decades. Current AI has become increasingly complex. For instance, Stable Diffusion now has plugins like ComfyUI and many others, indicating that AI is evolving into professional software. As we often say, complexity doesn't disappear; it just transfers elsewhere. The same holds true for AI-generated content (AIGC).Also, Natural language is inherently vague. For example, I learned some visual effcts and I learned that in order to make some cool effects, the only way to describe it is via algorithms instead of natural language. And many aspects, such as configuration of an image and some nuanced thoughts, can't be precisely described in natural language. Therefore, AI software is deemed to become increasingly complex.
Opinion 3:learning drawing skills will be useless due to AI, artistic taste matters
my thoughts: I think such opinions are hilarious. It's like telling a programmer that programming skills don't matter at AI age and only programming taste does. The only way to develop good programming taste is by diligently learning foundational computer science concepts, such as data structures, algorithms, operating systems, and computer networks, and by accumulating engineering abilities through years of coding. Even though mature libraries and AI have reduced the effort required to implement these things by hundreds of times, these tools only raise the lower bound. To break through the upper bound, you still need to master this fundamental knowledge. The same holds true for artists. To break through the upper bound, foundational knowledge such as perspective, human anatomy, and color theory is still crucial. The only way to develop good artistic taste is by mastering these fundamentals.
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these are many my thoughts, what are your thoughts

I have a few products and treatments that I just refuse to be cheap about. For one, I refuse to go to a cheap hairstylist. First off I think this new generation of hair stylists are out of their minds, they cancel the day of the appointment and act like I'm bothering them to do THEIR job. So, Ive started to go to more expansive hair stylists because I don’t get my hair done that often, and these ladies actually care about my hair, and are kind. I get hair treatments around 4 times a year with a trim and all of that and I have noticed that my hair as grown faster than it has in the past. Another thing I refuse to be cheap about is my nails, I only get Russian manicures and because refuse to go “chop shops”. While Russian manicures do cost a little bit more than a regular manicure ($75 for a manicure and $85 for a pedicure) they last so much longer than regular manicures / pedicures. Additionally, I no longer get acrylic nails and only get gel-x nails. I feel acrylic nails never allowed my nails to grow and they always broke off and left me in pain and with gel-x nails I've never had them fall off or break my nails. With that said, what are your beauty products/ treatments that you feel this way about?

TLDR: Nannying is a very hard job. There would probably be a lot more nannies who work as hard as one needs to do this job well if the pay matched the value and difficulty of the work.
I’ve been pretty active in this sub lately because I’ve been feeling unhappy at my job and it helps to have a community. I wrote this a while ago and have been nervous to post it but I think it’s important. I saw a post in nannyemployers asking where all of the “good” nannies have gone and this was the response I was writing until I realised the replies were to be from NP only.. I would post in the nanny employers sub if I weren’t terrified of the response. I know I’m singing to the choir here and I know saying it out loud doesn’t change much. But I am so, so angry, so imma just send it.
As a nanny who has two college degrees, practices Montessori, Reggio Emilia, and RIE, and as someone who has always loved and wanted to work with kids, there simply is not enough money in this career path to stick to it. I personally simply cannot rationalise doing the amount of physical and emotional work that is required for me to do this job as well as I want to for the typical pay, even though I absolutely love it.
For my background, experience, and approach, I am in a severely underpaid position (even when disregarding my qualifications it would still be severely underpaid.) Because of my personal and financial situation at the time of my job search, I did not have the luxury to wait for a unicorn family to offer me the salary I was looking for. I found a family that was a good fit and accepted the position even though I felt it was very much underpaid. I am now in a position where I am continuously battling wanting to work as hard as I can for these kids and this family, and realising I can’t break my back for them while being this underpaid (I mean I literally threw my back out during this job). I’m not someone who breaks a commitment easily but I guess I could move from family to family, waiting to find one who is able to financially respect the value of this work, or I could stick it out and get $2/hr raises every year, but I can’t wait 10 years to finally get close to being paid what I know a proper nanny is worth. Yes there certainly are some nanny employers who properly respect this work and are able to financially meet it’s value, but in my experience they are few and far between. I have found that the overwhelming majority of nannies are severely underpaid and overworked.
Nannies are asked to have flexible schedules, work long hours, take on a laundry list of responsibilities, develop personal emotional relationships with children that aren’t theirs while keeping a professional distance, pay for and organise their own continued training, be emotionally and socially engaged with children all day long, and more. But above all, the most important aspect of nannying is managing our stress is such a way that allows us to stay in an executive state of functioning all day every single day. People deeply underestimate and undervalue the amount of hard and constant work it takes to keep oneself in an executive state of functioning day in and day out, especially in a high stress position where you are helping other people regulate their bodies all day on top of yours, AND are constantly sick and tired and being pushed and tested. I think that this ability is what makes the difference in a “good” nanny and is often the most overlooked, misunderstood, and undervalued aspect of the job responsibilities.
I want to be a good nanny, it’s my dream job to be the best nanny there is, and I used to think that I could accept being in an undervalued role because “it takes a village” and I wanted to do my part and this was my passion. But it doesn’t feel good to be undervalued financially and socially, in fact it feels really really bad, and this is why I will no longer be pursuing a career as a nanny. Even if I found my unicorn position, it wouldn’t change the fact that the overwhelming majority of my nanny peers are still underpaid and undervalued, and that doesn’t feel good. It makes me want to leave, and I think all of the other underpaid nannies should leave too. (We need a union or something, is this a thing?)
The market is oversaturated and undervalued. Not everyone needs a nanny now that quarantine is over (a full-time nanny, not babysitter or after school care). I have both worked at a preschool and as a nanny and I have found that a setting with multiple children of similar age is far better developmentally for a child than spending most of their time with a single adult and a sibling or two, even for young babies. I think a healthy mix of a daycare setting and family time at home is probably best but can be the most difficult to achieve with the current work culture. This is no one’s fault, the overworking culture is a burden of late stage capitalism that we all face. However, it is the burden of the parents to solve their work/life balance. This is a very big part of what one signs up for when becoming a parent. It is not the burden of the nanny to work more for less or the children to miss being with their parents (I’d say two doctor NP are pretty much the only ones who’d get a pass here).
It’s no one person’s fault that nannies are financially undervalued, the value of personal childcare and domestic work has a long saturated history fraught with misogyny and racism. Have you compared the average wage of a plumber (male dominated domestic work) to that of a nanny (female dominated domestic work)? And don’t tell me plumbing requires more training or is harder than nannying, I assure you they are of comparable difficulty especially considering there’s no step by step instructions on YouTube for nannying. (And if you do consider plumbing to be that much hard than nannying, what do you think gives you that perception? I mean as a parent, one should know that nannying absolutely is not just playing with kids all day, even if that’s all you ask your nanny to do. What subconscious bias could be giving you the perception that bringing up children is less difficult and of less value than screwing pipes together? Have you taken a race or gender studies class? Have you seen The Help? Don’t answer, just think.)
Plumbers make average $28/hr in the states, mechanics $26, for nannies it’s $20 (and that’s being generous). That’s a ¢70 on the dollar comparison. It is time we all realise that nannying is an underpaid and undervalued role and work to change that. If the wage being offered across the board better matched the value of the work, I think one would find a lot more serious nannies and a lot more current nannies taking the job more seriously.
I didn’t get it at first, why so many nannies at the park seemed so burnt out and disinterested in the kids. Oh boy do I get it now. I want nothing more than to do my best in this role, but in the past few months after nearly being stiffed by NP, not receiving a bonus from them when I really thought I would, and overall realising I am being taken advantage of and am a human mine to them, I have realised that I can no longer put my all into this job for my own health and sanity. Being properly compensated is the primary motivating aspect of all work especially in the society we are a part of. After loosing my sense of respect from NP, I’ve lost most of the non-financial motivation I started out with and am left with what little motivation my petite pay check gives me, and the kids can tell.
Since my fallout with NP, I have pulled back emotionally from the kids. I’m not mean and I am still doing every responsibility in my contract to the letter (and then some still), but I am no longer as emotionally available to them as I was. I am shorter and more curt with them, I don’t take as much time with them to sit and talk about every feeling they have, and I’m not working as hard to help them break the bad habits NP give them that NP specifically ask me to break (one example - NP want NK to walk everywhere with me but then always use the stroller with NP and every time we go out it’s a fight to use the stroller or not. Guess who’s been using the stroller far more often lately). Anyway, the past week my NK 3f has been quietly crying before her nap and I’m sure it’s because she’s felt me pull away from her. It’s breaking my heart and I’ve been trying to give her extra cuddles, but I have to protect myself first now. This is a job and these aren’t my kids and I can no longer rationalise putting them first emotionally especially considering I am burnt TF out, torn down, and left feeling used up and tossed aside without any recognition or proper thanks from NP.
I don’t know what the perfect number is, the number I would say many NP would probably think is too high, and maybe they’re not looking for a nanny who works as hard as I and others do. But I can tell you that $17/hr before taxes in a VHCOL area does not even come close to close. I think we can all easily recognise that the financial value of this job needs to better match the value of the work, in general and across the board. We’re talking about the people caring for and raising the future generations here, I mean how is this not the most coveted role in our society?
This is my Roman Empire and I will die on this hill every. single. time.