I wouldn't wish immortality on anyone. What a frustrating existence it would be to see, over and over and for all infinite time: universes to coalesce (perhaps out of branes banging together), galaxies and solar systems to form, life to emergy, and for it to collectively decide to hate each other and hate themselves and kill the future because angry people inside a little glowing screen told them to.
Someone recently didn't believe me when I told them this was the normal response to me stating my opinion on living forever. Thank you for providing an example.
Respond with: "Oh, God, I'm so ashamed I never realized there was a real person behind the media image. I'm so sad that a fellow person went through that."
I want the rich to not be rich anymore, not for them to be killed. And I definitely don't want children of rich people to be abused, because child abuse is bad.
Personally, I don't care if the rich stay rich. I want the rich to pay a proportionate amount of their wealth in taxes, equal to or maybe even a little more than the proportionate amount I pay as a non fecal dragon sitting atop the mountain of gold I've shit all over. I also want rich to stop staying rich because their parents and parents' parents (etc) were rich and paid to have the system rigged so their degenerate children can stay rich without merit.
Glad to hear that. The top comment is talking about the people that do think the rich should be killed. And those people co-existing with people that empathize with Paris Hilton on lemmy.
The podcaster host Brace Belden of TrueAnon was forced into The Monarch School as a teenager, which had a similar curriculum to Elan. His podcast takes some deep dives into the treatment of students as part of "The Game" miniseries. Episode 4, in particular, focuses on how the Synanon organization transforms itself from a cultish and violent drug rehab operation into an even more predatory troubled teen outreach organization.
I read most of that (think I missed the last few chapters, but he was out of Elan and had done some traveling)--it was horrifying. There's also a 3 episode documentary on Netflix called "The Program" where the documentary maker revisits the now closed school where she went (The Academy at Ivy Ridge) and by episode 3, she's followed the money to one family behind a lot of these institutions. But as she and former AaIR students actually see other facilities far from where they were locked up, they're all carbon copies of each other, they're all just the same punish-for-everything camps with no escape. Fucked up that there's like a formal recipe for how to do this to families and not get caught. And that there are so few legal protections for children.
“Ms Hilton, I first read about your story in Vanity Fair. I don’t usually read that magazine, my wife does. She told me, ‘You have to read this story. You won’t believe what happened to her,’” Representative Mike Kelly said. “You telling what happened to you...is absolutely incredible and opens up a whole new vision for the rest of us.”
Nice save there, Mike.
Well, if it's going to be the government of celebrity, maybe we can at least get some good done with it.
Extreme behaviours such as exhibitionism and a very high concern with one's public image are actually quite consistent with not growing up in a good and well-balanced environment.
Well balanced people aren't overly concerned with being seen as stylish and heaving fun all the time, unless they're in a profession that requires managing the image one projects to the outside world (influencer, performing artist).
A lot of the people who come out of these schools are physical and emotional trainwrecks who immediately double-down on destructive behaviors as a form of anxiety relief.
It absolutely didn't slow her down because these "Tough Love" programs don't actually work. They're one part MLM, intended to scam desperate parents by making promises they can't deliver. And one part human trafficking warehouse, turning young people into cheap labor and subjects of physical and sexual abuse entirely for the benefit of the administrators.
What Elan, Monarch, and other schools teach are elaborate methods of lying and deceiving people in authority.
Addiction is an example, the thing that makes you feel good in the short term, is the same thing that mess you up in the long term, and the only thing that makes the thing bearable is more of the thing, completing a fucking horrible cycle.
Well no fucking shit. Clubbing is often an escapist behavior. People with severe trauma often find themselves engaging in risky behavior with drugs, alcohol, sex, etc. Anything to distract them and help them hide from the pain. Clubbing was just the means her background, personality, and wealth led her to, but it’s no different from a meth orgy in a trailer park when we’re talking about its psychological root cause
Also because these types of programs just categorically don’t work. Some of the techniques can help consenting adults, but in young people and people there against their will it just creates trauma
I mean she bought a teacup pig and when she realised it's a scam and the tiny pig turned into i gigantic pig, she kept it as a pet. I kinda always found that sweet. But i also don't know anything else about her
She pretty much created her own bad reputation. Not just from this show, but it definitely cemented it. There was also a sex tape scandal, but I think it was wrong to slutshame someone for something like that even back then.
Her main reputation was always vapid, filthy rich, snotty socialite - she was hardly the first, but she might have been the first we got to watch in a seasons-long reality show.
Edited to add - if that stuff was all an intentional move to bring shame on her family for how they mistreated her growing up, I'm now her biggest cheerleader.
