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I wanted to thank all of the readers who shared and used the last two articles for change in their lives and those close to them. In this article, I will go over the most common points which were brought up in my most recent article, “On Caregiving,” and then I will go over some updates regarding the blog post I wrote, “On the Consequences of Online Posting.” Lastly, I will go over a smaller point on the former article, which, you guessed it, was watch-related since a fair degree of my readers come to my site for topics on watches.
As a quick note, I chose to write about the topics above here and not on the social media platforms which brought you here for a good reason – this is only meant for those who are actively engaged in the act of reading. I have found in the past that writing anything slightly complex or even approaching long-form writing has unpleasant consequences on social media. For an analogy, it is like trying to have a serious conversation with a loved one as they are playing a competitive multi-player game with the television’s volume on maximum. I have no interest in having a discussion on this level with anyone on such platforms that promote distraction and short attention spans.
Feedback from you regarding “On Caring”
A common thread that kept arising when speaking to you was how typical and shared this struggle is for all of us and how we all avoid talking about caregiving. My conversations with some of you highlighted the point on the self-inflicted pressures that caregivers place upon themselves. There were a couple of examples of people in Canada with a fair amount of resources provided for its citizens and a couple from abroad where they could have been more fortunate. In both circumstances, many people attach an immense sense of shame if they are not devoting every fibre of their being to caring for their loved one. This portion of the article was pointed out to me and how it helped one reader.
“The danger that these people face is that, unlike medical professionals, there is no escape from their loved one’s illnesses and struggles. This is not a part of the work-life balance equation for these caregivers, but it would do them a lot of good to start viewing it as such.”
Caregivers who are related or close to the patient are blinded by their sense of duty. They would also refuse help when offered and place themselves and their loved one in harm’s way as a result. This could be a refusal to even look at a nursing home option, to refusing help from PSWs and even to taking their loved one to appointments with specialists. Depending on their educational level and background, a handful of my readers and I have come to a certain degree of shock with the false confidence that some people have in matters that are well beyond their capacities.
One person mentioned the section on At-Home Care and how this quote resonated with them personally and how they viewed distant family members putting themselves in harm’s way. “Third, you are placing your household at risk by letting in strangers who are at a higher risk of being in vulnerable positions in their lives, and on more than one occasion to those whom I have spoken; this vulnerability became a security threat to those hiring such workers in the past.”
This point was not seen as a priority for those with whom I spoke to quickly trust those in this field due to having their existing cognitive bandwidth strained. We instantly trust those in positions of care, such as personal support workers, and rarely stop to ask if they are, in fact, qualified to do the work or are who they are.
One reader mentioned how the matter of the Distance to Nearby Caregivers section on selecting the correct LTC mirrored some of their troubles with their aging parent. The aging parent refused to see the merit in settling on an LTC that was close to her children, who are her primary caregivers. She demanded to live close to where her current condominium is now. In our talk, she mentioned how her mother still has a fair degree of mobility, and we came to see that this was a matter of agency and identity for her in refusing to see reason. She is unwilling to accept that one day, it won’t matter where she is living, for she will not be coming and going as she pleases.
One reader mentioned parallels that they have experienced in dealing with those who have dementia and those with severe mental illness who are off their medications. The quote was, “Nothing good comes from conflict with an unhealthy mind,” and they detailed the pain of being forced to engage in a conflict where reason is not a valued commodity in the discussion.
These two quotes hit a couple of readers hard, and to be honest, I am glad that they did and were not ignored.
“For caregivers who are merely sitting beside their unconscious loved one, these loud and persistently unpredictable environments resemble torture tactics wrongfully deployed by bad actors to extract confessions and information from prisoners.”
“… if the patient had a healthy mind, would they wish for you to spend the remainder of your life wasting away? Chances are that this answer would be a resounding no and that they would wish the best for you and for you to live as full a life as possible.”
In both circumstances, I had not encountered a single caregiver or health professional who brought these points up. Over the years, however, when I brought this up, it could have been received better and led to conversations I regretted having.
From your feedback, it became apparent how much more common it is for people to needlessly turn away help and put themselves and the health of the person they are caring for at risk. The psychological aspect of being the caregiver and responsible for someone else’s life is powerful and can make people blind to reason.
Following up On the Consequences of Online Posting
This article’s main focus was on supporting Meta through our time spent on their platforms (which they use to quantify their advertising revenue), and how this is wrong due to the company’s practices towards targeting children and for their environmental impact. We will be following up on the environmental aspect of Meta and go into further detail as to how this space is being regulated, and why you should actually care.
For a quick review, the environmental aspect was discussed due to the number of repetitive posts on the same and multiple platforms across all of Meta’s (and other platforms such as X and TikTok) having been incentivized and how storing all of this data across all of the primary and redundant data centres exponentially increases these companies’ carbon footprint.
To kick this section off, Meta claimed that their CO2 emissions stood at 273 net tonnes, while a Financial Times Analysis revealed that number to be closer to 3.9 million tonnes.1 This is accomplished by accounting for one’s carbon footprint and emissions by using different tactics. And yes, this is not standardized and can easily be manipulated to make one’s company look greener than they are. Before we get into the mechanisms of how this is done, you need to keep in mind that not all energy sources have the same environmental impact. Because of a mixed and aging infrastructure, it is next to impossible for a company to know precisely where their operational electricity was derived from. This poses an interesting problem when it comes to accounting for emissions accurately.
The reason why you, as the consumer, should care about this is that the industry is currently undergoing a review for the first time in over a decade. Big Tech companies are aggressively lobbying to have the standards for how emissions are reported to be bent to how it benefits them, and not the environment. For instance, while Google has proposed a solution (which is flawed as well) the clean energy certificates given to the companies only match those of the region in which the energy was derived from, which is the opposite stance taken by Amazon and Meta’s “Emissions First Partnership” lobbying group.
These certificates come in many forms, some mandated by the government, and some not, but the general one that if you should care to start doing your own research about are Renewable Energy Certificates (REC). These are rather cheap and can be bought to offset a company’s carbon footprint. Some government bodies allow for a certain amount of emissions from a company before essentially having to buy such certificates or tickets. Some have come to view this as another form of tax that comes with operating within a certain region. The point of these certificates/tickets is that the money raised is supposed to go towards the development of greener technologies and, to crudely put it, planting more trees. Studies by academic bodies have shown that such certificates not only did not show any greater development in these technologies, but they also did not actually reduce emissions. Regarding the planting trees notion, keep in mind that it takes years for a tree to start having an environmental impact, and there is nothing stopping it being paved over for a parking lot in a couple of years – sorry Joni Mitchell.
Companies also purchase these certificates/tickets as a marketing tactic to present themselves a environmentally conscious company. The common term which you have undoubtably read over the last few years is that a company has achieved becoming a “net zero” emissions company. This is not how pollution works for not damage is being undone, corrected, or cured.
Before we go into the next section of this feedback article, it is important to note that Big Tech companies are now deploying the same tactics as previous industry bad actors such as cigarette companies, cars, and big oil. They are heavily investing in manipulating policy that benefits them and not the planet or humanity, and they are even paying for their own studies that will invariably paint them in a favourable light – the tobacco cases are the most egregious that come to mind. The same playbook is being deployed, for we humans are still the same fools that we were a century ago.
Questions regarding which watch I wore most while in hospitals
This question only popped up a couple of times, but it warranted a small section here. Each time I had to spend an inordinate amount of time in a medical facility, where I inevitably ended up assisting the nurses and staff, I wore a dive watch on a rubber NATO strap or a bracelet. The rubber NATO strap is a great option. I used dish soap or much harsher disinfectants to thoroughly clean and dry them before putting the watch back on. The watch in all these cases ended up being my Omega Seamaster 300, and this winter, it was immediately put on the bracelet after it became apparent that I would be spending weeks in such places.
Also, the luminescent plaint of the hands and the dial were key in overnight shifts, and the clear second’s hand made timing incidents and stress tests relatively easy. I, in fact, wrote an article on the WatchClicker a couple of years ago in which I interviewed several professionals about the watches they used in their work environment. Three of the respondents were doctors and continue to work in hospitals. You can read their input and wisdom on the topic here.
Thank you once again for reaching out about your thoughts, observations, and feedback regarding these two articles last week. I will continue to write more in-depth and detailed articles for you, for we all have more than enough sources that offer surface-level information.
- “Amazon and Meta’s bid to rewrite the rules on net zero”, by Kenza Bryan, Camilla Hodgson, Jana Touschinski, 08/14/24, The Financial Times
Time of writing – August 16th 2024