Still does. Many people have died of starvation and suicide after their benefits were stopped, and people still die of exposure outside when they’re homeless.

It starts in school when kids are graded in comparison to each other and set up in competition with each other.

I hate the pressure to buy gifts and cards at holidays such as these, especially when you are low, or in my case, no income. Luckily most people abandoned me so I haven’t really got anyone to buy anything for although I expect I’ll have to get my landlady a card. Still, it’s like the ultimate symbol of capitalism IMO, buying pointless nonsense that will go in the bin just because it’s a certain date and there’s social pressure to do so. I really feel for low income parents who have kids who want expensive crap and will be bullied at school if they don’t get it. The entire thing is insanity and makes people’s lives miserable just for corporate greed.

Yes, I do. Headaches and migraines. Trying to work out your triggers and avoid them can help but in many cases you can’t avoid the triggers. For instance, smells like perfume trigger mine and I can’t make other people stop using that. But I have cut out foods that trigger them and try to avoid dehydration. I’ve had every treatment from the neurologist including nerve blocking injections in my head, nothing works.

No I am not OK.

Yes, they’re supposed to be.

I never thought of that, but it sounds horribly correct.

Thanks. My next ones are in November. One every Tuesday.

I honestly don’t know why they don’t just legalise assisted suicide, with no requirement for a terminal diagnosis. I would take it and so would many others. They would save money by getting rid of us and it would be kinder than letting us starve or be worked to death which is what happens now.

I’ve cut and pasted it in a comment.

GP surgeries could have job advisers onsite as part of efforts to encourage 300,000 sick or disabled people into work by 2030 as the Government pledges to give people “a hand up, not a handout”.

Too many people with health conditions are being written off and out of the jobs market, Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said, adding that this is something which “fails our economy”.

Funding of more than £1 billion across England and Wales over the next five years is aimed at getting tens of thousands more people into work.

Currently there are approximately 2.8 million people out of work in the UK due to long-term sickness – a figure roughly equivalent to the population of Greater Manchester.

Benefit claimants can be supported by work coaches at job centres in various ways, including being offered advice and referred for job opportunities.

But the Government said specialist employment advisers, which it described as being different to work coaches, are now being embedded into healthcare teams, including GP surgeries and mental health services, to ensure job support is treated as part of the all-round care on offer.

It is understood people will get intensive, personalised help including individual coaching from employment specialists who understand complex barriers to work.

Mr McFadden said: “Writing off people with long-term health conditions or disabilities fails them and fails our economy.

“We are giving people a hand up, not a handout, realising their potential and providing them with the skills to succeed as part of our Plan for Change.

“Thanks to local areas hitting the ground running, it is already delivering results – proving that when we invest in people and communities, everyone wins.”

Will sick people be forced to see job coaches? The plans are part of the Connect to Work scheme, which is voluntary and open to those who are disabled, have a health condition, or face complex barriers to work.

A £167.2 million expansion of the programme into areas including Cumbria, Oxfordshire, and West Sussex and Brighton is expected to see more than 40,000 more sick or disabled people get support into work.

Unemployed people and those who are in work but at risk of losing their jobs because of the barriers created by their health conditions can refer themselves for support or be referred by healthcare professionals, councils, or community organisations.

Disability campaigners welcomed extra support for people but warned the new measures should not end up forcing people into work.

James Taylor, executive director of strategy at disability equality charity Scope, said the Government “must make sure it’s not pressuring people who are not well enough to work”, while Mark Gale, policy manager at Sense, said it is “vital these measures are designed and delivered alongside disabled people to bring about meaningful change, and aren’t simply used to force people into jobs that aren’t suitable for their needs or may even be detrimental to their health”.

As well as availability of employment advisers, people in areas including Portsmouth, the North East and East Sussex will have access to virtual reality immersive classrooms to help with interview practice, workshops to improve confidence and communication skills, and community-based health programmes.

Parents will also be helped with access to affordable childcare to enable them to get back into the workforce, the Department for Work and Pensions said.

The Government has previously warned that if the welfare system is not reformed, the number of working-age people on disability benefits is set to more than double this decade to 4.3 million, and spending on working-age disability and incapacity benefits will rise to £70 billion a year by the end of this Parliament in 2029/30.

I recently wanted to watch a video online, that, it turned out, was hosted by facebook. It said I needed to sign up to watch it. I really wanted to watch it so decided to make a facebook account, but as part of the process, it said

“Confirm your identity with a video selfie To make sure that you’re a real person, we need you to record a video selfie. We’ll ask you to move your head during the recording to help us capture your face at different angles.”

And no way am I doing that, I mean what on earth are they going to use that for? So I didn’t sign up and didn’t get to watch the video.

Can’t come too soon.

I got banned from reddit anyway. I called another redditor a child molester, because he was waxing lyrical about how hot underage girls are. I got banned for insulting him. He did not get banned. Reddit is a cesspit.

? It’s not a competition. I can be upset that live animals are being thrown away and I already know shelters kill animals.

There are similar things here but they have to be paid for, it won’t work out any cheaper.

I really think our medical knowledge and treatments are very primitive. Doctors hardly know a thing, really.

I always think about the animal suffering that went into wasted food too. Some animal lived its life in a crowded cage, got crammed into a truck and driven hundreds of miles in torturous conditions, dragged into an abattoir and died painfully in terror to make this food and someone just throws most of it away.

I have less than 3$ in my checking account, and my CC are maxed. I’ll be rationing my food until payday next week. Sure is a blast living in the richest country that has ever existed in human history.

This should be a headline tag (or whatever they’re called) on this site.

When I hear stories about people just spending a large amount of money like that, it doesn’t even feel real to me. These people live in a different world to me, literally. Like we’re in two parallel universes but I can somehow see into theirs briefly. But then I think someone in a slum in Calcutta probably feels the same about me. It’s just crazy how society went from egalitarian hunter gatherers to…this. And even crazier that it’s getting worse. It’s getting like Ready Player One, where a few trillionaires own everything and everyone else is penniless.