Game theoretic game theory

This is going to be a discussion of the following piece of beggary :

*PLEASE READ UPDATES*

OVERVIEW

I am in a very difficult and dangerous spot right now where I am being forced to move in with my violent, homophobic, ignorant, toxic family and I'm incredibly scared for my safety and already ready to leave.

I was extremely scared for my life while living with my family especially of my father but I managed to move 80 miles away in October 2012 but circumstances have led me to begin the process of moving out while also leaving rent arrears.

My family is unaware that I don't share their religious views, unaware that I am bisexual and that I have friends of all ethnicities, religious views, genders and sexual orientations. If they knew any of this, my life would be at risk. I cannot take the chance of being around them and them discovering any of this. I've already had to destroy plenty of personal belongings that would be too risky to take with me back into the family home, some of them very cherished.

If you're feeling generous, please do donate anything you can spare at the aforementioned link to aid me in finding a new place of my own or clearing my rent arrears in order to allow me to stay in here, away from my family.

Thank you and have a nice day

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For me, this fund-raiser could be the difference between life and death, between being forced to live a lie where I never feel safe again simply for the way I was born and being able to be independent of those who threaten my future and life. For you, it could mean parting with even £1/$1 to help out someone in desperate need.

WHO I AM

It's not my real name, which I've kept off this page for my own safety* but my screen name is Kandosii Jetii.

Things many people can take for granted have never come so easily to me and in most cases, haven't come at all; a loving and support network of family and friends, the opportunity to pursue my dreams, happiness, the ability to live my life without fear and judgement based on my sexual orientation, race and mental health.

I was born in the Midlands in England. A nice place, I always thought it was a wonderful, vibrant city but because of my family I couldn't wait to get out. I was born to a violent, hateful family. The kind of people who thought it was OK to mercilessly beat and berate me on a daily basis, demonstrate absolutely no love towards me, make me believe I'm a burden of a child who deserved pain and made me want to die when I barely even knew what that meant. My earliest memory is being intentionally locked out in the back garden from the age of 4 so I wouldn't disturb my dad while he was watching the evening news. They found a perfect victim in their son who was already cripplingly shy and had no friends. In 2002. the one time I managed to contact somebody who could help , I was forced by my extended family (whose care I was under temporarily) to lie to the authorities and say I was making up stories for attention. All this under the threat of more violence or a lot worse. I was returned to my vengeful father and enraged brother.

The entire time this was going on, my family maintained the image of being a peaceful, devoutly Muslim family just trying to teach their unruly son the values of Islam. I was sent to mosque classes for 2 hours everyday after school and I'd be forced to memorise Quran passages whenever I didn't have school homework This may just sound like parents sharing their religion with their son but I got to see what others didn't and what still goes on daily in the community I face returning to. Their borderline radical approach to the religion made them intolerant of anybody who didn't share their ethic heritage or religion. Homophobic, anti-Semitic and racist comments were par for the course and endorsing the "cleansing" of the parts of the world that didn't share their faith was part of the everyday conversation. It's more than safe to say I didn't share their views. I internally questioned Islam at a young age and started considering myself agnostic. Having seen their attitude towards other apostates and attitude towards my clinical depression, the years of painful physical and psychological abuse at the hands of my father's narcissistic personality my life would be at risk if I ever admitted to this. I feared being made homeless at the very least so I knew I had to keep my religious beliefs and sexual orientation to myself.

My family despised apostates and non-Muslims in every way possible and at times made it their quest to destroy them. But when it came to LGBT individuals, they were even more bigoted and malicious. Hearing my dad either deny they existed, endorse their murder or call them horrifying names terrified me. It wasn't hard to draw a link between hearing your own borderline radical Muslim dad call for all of the LGBT community to be killed and the horror stories in the news of young people around the world coming out to their Muslim family about their religion or sexuality only to turn up dead later, be publicly outed and lynched or have their entire life irrevocably ruined. When you're a lonely agnostic teenager questioning your identity and discovering you're bisexual, those links were all too real.

WHERE I AM NOW

Having all these things on my mind 24/7 was tough and the depression, anxiety, suicide attempts, attempts to run away from home and loneliness can't be surprising. When I got the chance to go to university elsewhere in the UK, I jumped at it and I moved away specifically because of the serious concerns I had for my safety due to the possibility of my family finding out about me being agnostic and bisexual. I'd seen enough to know that I wasn't safe around them if they found out either of those things and the life I had there wasn't a happy or comfortable one in the least.

I went on to university, studied a course I truly loved and felt a lot better. Years of being in an abusive home had taken its toll and I wasn't exactly mentally stable but I was a lot happier. I had escaped them physically but they still had power over me and acted on it when my dad outright stole from me. Struggling financially, my health and studies suffered and just a short time later I went on to fail my first year at university and be on the verge of suicide. No longer eligible for the financial aid from Student Finance England that kept me going for the year, I had to raise enough money for rent, bills and food to keep me in the house I share with three friends and struggling students 'till I could find a job. Relying on scarce savings, loans, benefits and kind donations I made it far enough to get a full-time job.

On my birthday earlier this year, I decided I would end my life and cut the world a break, making it a better place by getting rid of somebody too mentally defective to be of any use to it. Instead I ended up in hospital where it was recommended my anti-depressants prescription be changed to experiment with new medication and it was suggested I be prescribed sleeping aids and was also told I am in desperate need of counselling and therapy relating to the lifelong violent abuse I suffered at the hands of those who were supposed to care for me.

Shortly after this event, my tenancy came to an end at the house I shared with 3 students and having spent the last of my money on back-rent owed to the landlord, I was unable to find a place to live untill my paycheques piled up long enough to secure a deposit, rent and enough to live on. This took the majority of the summer which I spent living in the care of an invaluably compassionate couple who were kind enough to temporarily house me as long as they could via an important local charity that had been providing mentorship and emotional support. After this I was able to move into the NW flat I'm currently living in.

I was dealt another blow when I was dismissed from my job recently. This action was somewhat anticipated in the week prior and I made no effort to keep from my employer my mental health issues and their deficiencies and legal lapses in dealing with these issues. Feeling the decision to end my employment was unjustified and potentially illegal, I unsuccessfully appealed the decision through the employers official channels.

WHY I'M HERE

I am now faced with another so far unsuccessful job-hunt and unsure period where I am struggling all while exploring my options on being able to get justice from my former employer through legal channels or by going public against the employer already going through a sustained period of mismanagement and justified public scrutiny for unrelated issues.

If I am unable to raise the fundraising amount, I would be forced to move in with my family again and owe considerable amounts of money in rent arrears for a property I can no longer afford to live in.

All I ask is that I don't have to choose between living on the streets, living with a group of people who seem determined to make my life hell or succumbing to my depression and baggage. Literally any penny that could be spared would be helpful right now. My options dwindled a long time ago and now I'm doing my best to stay positive but a kind word or two when I have nobody or any tiny amount you could spare would be a major help.

WHERE WILL DONATIONS GO?

100% of the money will go towards the cost of living for the forseeable future including rent payments (inc. those in arrears), council tax, food, utility bills, a much needed heater to fight the cold and also travel, clothing and printing costs related to job-hunting/interviews. If enough is raised efforts will also be made to repay any outstanding bank fees and the small amount of rent due to the couple who housed me over the summer.

These costs cannot be covered by the UK benefits system due to the employment dismissal for a period of 13 weeks after dismissal, which by the JSA's ruling would not be till early 2015.

Any donation, big or small will be useful and appreciated. Please do share this page with anybody who may be able to help or spread the link.

Thank you.

* Should I not achieve the goals set out here, I will have no issues coming forward with my identity and revealing the details I've kept hidden to protect myself. It will already be too late. Conversely, if I was succesful in escaping my familys clutches, revealing my identity would not pose a significant threat as long as my whereabouts remained hidden.

tl;dr : Anal child scammed his room-mates (due to "circumstances"), scammed the governmentⁱ and is now willing to scam you, too. Send money to the dotted line.

The direct is drastically uninteresting, but consider the following :

hanbot As idiotic and deplorable as the schtick is, as much as it belies (and I hate to admit this, as you prolly know) an actual dearth of physical violence, if people are up for giving some kid $3k or w/e because he thinks his parents are mean, why work at McDonalds? Make up a good story about parents being mean.

[ after a short while]

hanbot Nah, I take it back. Fuck the whole lot of it.

She got pretty pissed off, and perhaps for good reason. But before we consider the good reason, let's consider the following piece, written by me in very similar and yet distinct circumstances, for the use of some Romanian speaking people, many six years ago :

It really isn't that big of a deal.

What isn't ? Bear with me and I'll explain. I speak with youth, at the partyⁱⁱ and in meetings for future businessmen, and at trainings and wherever else (while in vacationⁱⁱⁱ I had forgotten how many youths come by the party, by the way. It's a big deal this, few places in the world enjoy such a promising advantage.)

So, all these kids have a very similar bother, which in the end appears a moral problem of society as a whole. Let's take an example : Irina Noaptes is a girl aged 21. As proper for a girlie of that age, she's going to college. Junior year, as for the bulk of 21 year old girls. But she's going to college... in Paris. Well... that's what it is, good for her, it's true that few Romanian girls go to college in Paris, but in the end, if she liked the book ? Very good, let her go to Paris. More power for her.

But she also has a condo. At this spot, the other person starts to frown slightly. He rents. Everyone rents. How the Devil are you to afford owning a condo aged 21 ? Well, come now, some have a talent for business, maybe she started something aged 18, built her entreprise quickly at an age other kids are still struggling to learn how to knot the tie, and bang! Three years later, her own condo.

"Come come ?" says the guy. "And when's she go to school ?" Because fine, she's in business, entrepreneurial youth was seen before. But they've not been seen in school, for they've not the time. So pick one, either college in Paris because you like to study, or your own condo because you like money. One or the other.

Well... this isn't as much of a problem, seeing how the condo is... also in Paris. In fact, worth something over a million.^iv Euros. And the girl also has a house, and other real estate in Romania, so she doesn't get bored. And a car. X5. Hm ?

Once at this juncture, the youthful preopinent is just about ready to throw his hat to the ground and jig on it. How is this possible! Eh, well. He's too young to recall father Noaptes, the esteemable Alexandru Noaptes, ex director at CFR Calatori^v and, deductively, the main reason cars are still filthy, or at any rate, were at some point. Alongside, of course, with the happenstance that people dirty them.

And from here onwards, a complex arises in the mind of this young man, and all the others just as well. "If I can barely make ends meet month by month, and this chick's already got her own house and car, how the fuck am I ever going to be happy in this life ? I'll be dead before I catch up."^vi This is the big thing that embitters the days and especially the nights of a good chunk of the youth of the country, as I have had occasion to notice. And not filler, either, but young gentlemen and ladies of talent, with promise, with some means, the middle class as it were.

Well... it's not really such a big deal.

Of course, merely stating it... so it's not a big deal to me, what's that help them ? Some guy that can afford years' vacation to be spent in Boston, Mass, San Antonio, TX or San Jose, Costa Rica, as he feels like and ? Of course he wouldn't think it's a big deal.

This may be so, but it wouldn't seem a big deal even were I in their place, about to take life head on, on a basis worth roughly 0, at the age of 15-18-21. Why ? Well, let us look to history. Take Mutu, since he's such a big star.^vii Isn't it a big deal for someone to come to your village, take you from behind the cows, sell you and buy you for millions, and towards the end tens of millions of euros ? What other head of cattle in that village pays this much ? None, his transfer to Chelsea was a record for Romanian football.

But that was five years ago. How much money does Mutu have today ? Millions of euros, right ? Tens of millions, yes ? And a smart and beautiful girl that loves him and supports him. Right ? Wrong. He used to, yes. But the girl divorced, and not for her being whorish but for his being stupid, so drastically stupid that matters took the face of "gotta ensure the child's future somehow". The smart and beautiful girl^viii had like a suspicion that Ady-boy will drink all the dough, like any dumb peasant. History shows she made the right call. So Mutu has a smart girl in his past, and debts. A smart girl to whom he's proven he's stupid, and debts he can't repay. He has no money, and no means to make money, it's come to public charity for the "brilliant". How many diamonds do you know to need public charity for any purpose ? Me either.^ix

And that's the thing, it happens the same way as far as I can recall. I know people that had the world, enriched by the various successive lotteries composing the history of Romania's economy. People enriched by Caritas. People enriched by Dacia Felix (recall that one ?). People enriched by Bancorex. People enriched by SAFI. Where's Catarama today ? Where are they all ? What has come of these cardboard happinesses, of these grandiose achievements^x of papier mache ?^xi

Take Dinamo, a club that's supposedly worthy of Champions League. Turns out it really isn't. How much is Dinamo "worth" ? We find out today. Looky that it doesn't fit on the calculation of "how much money was spent". Money can be spent on anything, doesn't necessarily mean that something comes to ever be worth anything. How much is fire worth ? Not much ? Well... keep putting money in, then.

I had a friend, a very close friend. He died, some years ago. Cerebrovascular accident, on the street. Aged 43. So it goes. We were all convinced it was foul play, as the English say, hit by group X, troop Y. Innumerable autopsies, nothing there. Stroke, plain and clear. That's what it is, stressful life. He left behind him a consistent fortune. A whole apartment building. Houses and acreage. The parent's house, a jewel, expanded and improved with anything conceivable. Wine cellar, large and capacituous, with bottles worth thousands of euros, with collector's casks. I know for I helped him pick.

And three children, a daughter and two sons. Who split the fortune among themselves, amply sufficient to live happily ever after, they and their offspring. Ten years later, barely, they're all renting. Do the details matter, each invidiual road leading here ? It doesn't. Not for me.

Which is why I say : it's not such a big deal. It's not upon you to catch up with her, my dear. She'll catch up with you, in five to ten years. Ever seen a flying rock ?

The substance is exactly the same : hanbot sees that bit of copy, of advertising copy and interacts with it as if it were a thing. It is not. It is a bit of advertising copy.

What matters first and foremost isn't in any sense what it says. What matters is the available exposure. If you go scribble an advertising for Coca-Cola under a rock somewhere, for all its numerous qualities it may have, admitting that's possible, it still won't drive any sort of soda sales.

What matters first and foremost is the exposure. A good story helps, of course, but it's secondary. If you have the cattle captive^xii, you're going to show them something or the other, and it's going to drive some conversions, and that's that. That's what matters in this discussion.

Having those ad spots is owning real estate, which comes with its usual costs and encumberments - you have to spend money to make money, and spend money to defend the money you make and the process that makes them. Economy doesn't simply go away because the story doesn't mention it (and politics don't simply stop because some schmuck doesn't want to think about it).

You're not seeing "a kid" that "made" "X money" with "a story". You're seeing an economic process. It's an ad. It converts to some degree, like any ad. Some ads make money, some ads lose money, this one isn't special - or something else - just because it made X^xiii nominal gross. You've not seen the net. And if the net is positive, it's still the net, of an ad. You want to run your own ads ? Make your own chumpatron.

The only alternative, of course, is... Well... it's easier. And more convenient. And what the... ahem... what the consumers have come to expect.

I still don't think it's that big of a deal.

1. How the fuck does one manage to flunk freshman year in social pseudoscience is beyond comprehension of mere mortals, but anal children can achieve what you can scarcely comprehend. [↩]
2. At the time I was more or less involved with the Romanian Liberal Party, which at the time was (still) a major force in Romanian politics. [↩]
3. 2004 to 2008, that vacation. Originally it was going to be retirement, but honestly, early retirement doesn't stick. [↩]
4. To properly understand this, Romania had just changed its currency at a time, from the old leu going 30 to 40 thousand to the dollar to the new leu going 3-4 to the dollar. People broadly still used prices in the millions to refer to 30 bucks worth of something. At this time, owning your condo in a major Romanian town would set you back something to the tune of ten or maybe twenty thousand dollars, so not really much of an achievement for anyone but Romanians themselves. [↩]
5. Romanian national (and only) railroad operator. [↩]
6. To understand this specifically Romanian (of the time) "catch up" business, you'll have to understand that on or about January 1st, 1990, all Romanians started (or perceived to be starting) at the same 0 level of post-communist nothingness. It was sort-of like a landgrab, one of those 19th century American phenomena, and a perfectly reasonable goal in life was to catch up.

   This has been fading constantly since the mid 2000s, and by now I would guess it's almost completely gone. [↩]

7. At the time, Adrian Mutu, Romanian football player, was a huge star. [↩]
8. Consuelo. [↩]
9. This is a fact, at some point they made the equivalent of the above gofundme campaign for him to pay some fine or other. [↩]
10. Impliniri marete is, pars pro toto, a reference to the economic idiocy of communism. It comes from a well known song, "Traim decenii de impliniri marete", that came out just as things were going to shit in the mid 80s.

    I still put it on, occasionally. Sort-of like I'll be taking a piss in Obama's empty skull now and again, many years in the future. [↩]

11. History has meanwhile produced quite the answer : Moartea ca o veste buna. [↩]
12. Recall Strategic superiority, a saga ? The refuse of Western society ? That. [↩]
13. In this case, about 3k. Which is really pitiful, if you think about it in the correct frame of mind. [↩]