d007saysthings

[d007saysthings]

Remind me again what happened to this transwoman, no please, I wanna hear how you distort the truth to suit your narrative.

That way I'll be able to tell if radfems get their brainrot from the same source or if you simply let your conspiracy theory-fueled persecution complexes run wild.

The state of gay rights in the early aughts was not good; criminal penalties for homosexuality were rarely enforced but were on the books in many places, there was no right to marriage, and the morality of homosexuality was hotly contested in public. Big culture war issue. In that environment, where substantive protections were lacking, Democrats could be tepid on gay rights without actively giving anything up—if, like Obama in 2008, you didn’t support gay marriage, you could still be seen (correctly) as advocating for an overall better situation for gay people, or at least one that was no worse, in contrast to your right wing opponents.

Trans rights are not in the same position. Before the big trans rights backlash started, access to gender affirming care was pretty widespread, was everywhere legal, and was a matter for private concern only. Trans people could play in school sports subject to whatever their league’s rules were, and the idea of trying to make it illegal to cross dress in public was absurd. The conservative position since has become one of an explicit rollback of rights: revoke access to gender affirming care, create new criminal sanctions to punish trans people, make it illegal for them to participate in school sports, etc.

In that environment, tacking to the right on trans issues means deciding which elements of trans rights you are willing to concede to this project of actually rolling back trans rights. The only thing comparable from the gay rights fight is maybe state constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage, or DOMA—all of which were, IIRC, passed despite gay marriage not being legal in affected jurisdictions. Their enactment, while deplorable, had no material negative affect; gay people already couldn’t get married.

And that this project of rolling back trans rights is not a particular fetish of the religious right is more worrying. Plenty of liberals and liberal institutions are pretty transphobic. Britain has been working to export its flavor of (Moderate, Sensible, Secular) transphobia to other countries in Europe and the Anglosphere. Transphobes winning these fights isn’t a status quo situation—it’s a sharp increase in repression of trans people.

In light of that, I regard calls to “moderate” on trans issues with at best scorn. I think the party of civil rights condoning the rollback of citizens’ civil rights is really bad for its brand, won’t win it more votes, and may sufficiently alienate members of the base—who are invested in the party specifically because of its historic support for civil rights—that they simply don’t bother to show up in elections.

[d007saysthings]

Ok I really didn't wanna just say "no u" so I did a lil reading that seemed to confirm what I thought (and wasn't satisfied with what I found so I considered just letting things rest) but to at least clarify:

Nuclear power plants are indeed extremely efficient and that's the problem. Their energy output is still too low to cover a country's energy needs. As things stand, they're a crutch.

I found no claims that the plants themselves need to waste precious energy to be unnecessarily safe, in fact, every pro-nuclear (or anti-anti-nuclear) site mentions efficiency instead of "regulations lowering efficiency" or something.

Further, there is the additional problem that governments can't look at "overall radiation" because the people living next to the waste disposal won't care about averages. And no sane politician will go "don't worry, you've let us do worse, look at all the damage we allow to your health as is."

it would be kind of based if our renewable energy woes were just immediately solved by building a functioning fusion reactor. like all this philosophical hand-wringing about the consequences of our overconsumption, about the need to eschew our worldly possessions and live smaller, simpler lives more in tune with our food and our material goods and where they come from. how climate change is a wake up call to shun the vulgar decadence of modernity and embrace a more humble, soulful way of living. and then it's just like no lmao we solved it with a machine. sorry you spend all that time contemplating the human condition but what we actually needed was a new machine. sorry lmao. there's pretty much free energy forever now don't even worry about.

[d007saysthings]

Oh my that's great, you people are still stupid enough to think that Hamas pissing of Israel was a smart move.

Or you're stupid enough to think that something being motivated by righteous intentions makes the consequences irrelevant.

Unbelievable.

[d007saysthings]

Well yes, I didn't wanna get bogged down in "technically everything is finite" because come on, you know what I meant.

Now I do have to confess I didn't read papers on this matter but got most of my info from pop sci and articles. All of those tell me that Thorium reactors don't provide enough energy, despite all the startups and government funding that it does get.

And uranium extraction from sea water is super in its infancy. The other of course being common sense: There is no major country on Earth powering their energy sector with thorium or even planning to, I know you're some form of libertarian but is that really supposed to be all the fault of (US) bureaucracy?

Isn't a technological bottleneck far more in line with how the world works otherwise?

it would be kind of based if our renewable energy woes were just immediately solved by building a functioning fusion reactor. like all this philosophical hand-wringing about the consequences of our overconsumption, about the need to eschew our worldly possessions and live smaller, simpler lives more in tune with our food and our material goods and where they come from. how climate change is a wake up call to shun the vulgar decadence of modernity and embrace a more humble, soulful way of living. and then it's just like no lmao we solved it with a machine. sorry you spend all that time contemplating the human condition but what we actually needed was a new machine. sorry lmao. there's pretty much free energy forever now don't even worry about.

[d007saysthings]

Ah but wouldn't it make sense to use automation to send your desperate message to as many people as possible?

Hey there mod H, sorry to pause the merry trick or treats.... I have a poll that might be right on the edge of what you don't allow, up to you to see if you post it, if you do, I'm genuinely a bit lost in what to do right now, looking to know what people do:

If someone sends you an ask to share their story / donation link as they claim they're victims of an ongoing crisis, what do you do?

Always share

Never share

Only share if there's hard proof it's legit

Depends of the blog the ask is on

Another nuance

See results

I've received such an ask recently on my art blog. Thing is, I've never even reblogged anything on that blog, it's 100% my own posts, no promo, nothing, this blog is only my gallery. It's my most active blog, sure, but it's running on a queue. AFAIK, I don't really see a way to know if the ask is even legit. So based on my way to use my blog, my first reaction is to ignore and move on, maybe delete the ask. But such asks are meant to play on our heartstrings and there's this insidious guilt building that you should help in any way you can, here by sharing... but what if it's not legit? It's easy to use legit text and images and send a scam link, how could I know? What happens to do whatever I want of my blog because it's my little safe corner of the Internet...? So yeah, very much overthinking that, really looking forward to know what y'all do.

I'll allow this one as I can tell it's really bothering you.

[d007saysthings]

But. Guys. We'd run out of fission material just like how we'll run out fossil fuels eventually (though the latter only after they've done their damage).

Nuclear power is no panacea even if most people fear it for illogical reasons. The energy it would provide isn't actually that abundant.

it would be kind of based if our renewable energy woes were just immediately solved by building a functioning fusion reactor. like all this philosophical hand-wringing about the consequences of our overconsumption, about the need to eschew our worldly possessions and live smaller, simpler lives more in tune with our food and our material goods and where they come from. how climate change is a wake up call to shun the vulgar decadence of modernity and embrace a more humble, soulful way of living. and then it's just like no lmao we solved it with a machine. sorry you spend all that time contemplating the human condition but what we actually needed was a new machine. sorry lmao. there's pretty much free energy forever now don't even worry about.

[d007saysthings]

I love how people on here pretend random popular internet expressions are and always were overt signals of belief in white supremacy and then turn around and use the word "race" exactly like actual race scientists used it.

[d007saysthings]

I think the volatility of being disabled plays into this too though. Even if you only think you are and you are in fact, as physically or mentally capable as the average joe, the mere fear of losing a vital support network (i.e. a thing that every developed nation citizen is dependent on in some way) is enough to induce crab bucket mentality.

i think a specific sort of person is smart enough to realize that like as a society we're unautomated/poor enough that to maintain a modern standard of living basically everybody needs to work a significant amount, but doesnt want to work a significant amount, but isnt willing to accept an explicitly fuck you got mine position about minimizing the amount of work they do and benefiting from the more work other people do, and so concieves of a natural hierarchy of people, some of whom are suited to work and some of whom are suited to higher pursuits. im pretty sure blake is this type of guy and its like his worst trait. anyway. its a dumb kind of guy but i symphatize

[d007saysthings]

Always rember! When the thing you are feeling is righteous fury, your opinion on the matter at hand is always entirely correct~ 🌸

[d007saysthings]

I mean.. yesn't, right?

People really overblow the effectiveness of some forms of propaganda. I've seen hundreds of car commercials and I'll never ever want to buy one. I've seen even more ads promising me free money and it only motivates me to find methods of targeted mass murder that I can get away with. What makes propaganda so insidious is that it capitalizes (hah!) on things you already believe.

Outrage farming by itself is pretty blatant and doesn't really require datamining.

Further, I think it's worth noting that there'll definitely be times when the bypassing of one's intellect isn't a foolproof method and it doesn't need to be.

You can view things with extreme contextual awareness despite the things' best efforts to not make you think. But then you'll move on with your life a little and start to forget to look out for those things because it's easier.

I have that post about how you need to recognise your capacity for evil, and it's true. But here's another one: you need to recognise your capacity to be fooled and manipulated.

It's not a skill issue. Modern propaganda techniques are sophisticated. Advertisers have vast datasets combed from social media; they typify you, they have a science of what techniques work on people like you. Ask yourself how many times you've seen some article which stokes your anger or flatters your preconceptions and reblogged it thoughtlessly without ever even considering whether the source was reliable or whether it was true. You know better, but you don't *do* better because they know how to bypass your discursive intellect; how to get you to act in the space between your anger kicking in and your rationality kicking in.

And your enemies are being manipulated in this fashion as well. You're not better than them.

[d007saysthings]

Well the word "wantonly"'s doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Obviously, there's emotional or social reasons to commit such violence. And to jump off of OP's idea, I don't think it's a lack of a moral compass that makes people do such things, it's usually either a lapse in judgement (a lot of alcohol-related crimes out there) or a rationalization.

Most if not all domestic abusers won't (sincerely) say they don't care about the people they hurt, they'll usually try to justify themselves.

The question at the end of the day is whether morality systems are put in place to counter these motivations or to assuage the general population that they'd never do something bad and if they do, they're not normal people. Though I'm guessing the latter is just a consequence of living in a society where a system to enforce the former is put in place.

I actually do not believe humans have a guiding moral system. That does not predict or explain human behavior very well at all. Most people's behavior is far more easily explained by their emotions, their needs, and what everyone around them considers it to be normal to do. Most people will instinctively stay alive, stay comfortable, and avoid social ostracism, and their actions flow clearly from that. the patterns of behavior are predictable, but not morally consistent or principled.

And in the absence of adhering to true "morals," most humans don't go around killing/maiming/assaulting people anyway. Because there is little reason to. it's rarely fun or enjoyable, and dealing with the fallout of it would be a real pain.

I always wonder why moral theorists assume we need some belief system to keep us from killing one another. What do you get out of killing someone? It is exhausting and messy. Animals do not have a moral system and they don't go around killing other animals for no good reason. Even predator animals are highly selective in what they try to kill, because killing consumes a huge amount of energy and attempting to kill is dangerous. no living being goes around recklessly doing violence because it's bad for it, the animal.

We do not have to worry about humans being wantonly "evil". Most behaviors that we label as evil are a huge pain in the ass to do, with zero clear gain. when humans do treat one another violently there is virtually always some intense overpowering need they are trying to meet, some survival stakes that make it the better option in that moment than doing nothing.

The acts of violence and abuse that happen in the world on a more global scale occur not because of someone lacking morals, but because people in power have a vested economic or political reason to do it, and face relatively low risk. It is easy for the leaders of imperial powers to genocide people, it does not place them in physical danger, and they stand to gain a lot from it. thats why it happens. thats what we gotta worry about. that some people have clear incentives to kill/maim/rape on a global scale, and doing so costs them nearly nothing. not that people are "evil"

[d007saysthings]

i hope txttle blocked me for my comments on her post, not because she's part of the rest of the idiot crew (which she is)

[d007saysthings]

The first part is primarily about her supporting the military personnel specifically (presumably including veterans, which has been a hot button issue since... always because war leaves mental and physical scars). Every country in the world has a military (a thing I wish wasn't necessary) are China, India, Russia, Mozambique, Iran, all evil imperialists too? And of course, one might be willing to cede that having "the strongest" military isn't just about wanting to suppress all that oppose you but also about preventing: North Korea from nuking South Korea. Russia from conquering any country they deem to be Russian enough. China from conquering any country they deem to be Chinese enough

But that's just my interpretation, idk the context. And i hate military solutions to begin with, so that's just some nuance for ya.

Anyway, back to you being obtuse.

She explicitly names China, which is to mean China, the biggest contender for economic power that is expanding into every continent as we speak. Some might say they are doing so unethically, through debt traps and such. Regardless, contending with them economically as the (previously) biggest economic power in the world, isn't as imperialistic as you'd like to pretend. What do you want her to do, promise a recession?

In regards to China, she explicitly names AI and the space race, which the military will only have tangential and non-violent roles in, if any. How did you manage to ignore that?

holy shit lmao

[d007saysthings]

Ye-e-es. Which in turn again begs the question what leads us to mixing those liquids. A lot of modern tech is only possible because politics established a global trade network.

Without rubber, we don't get cars. Without cobalt, we don't get electric cars.

Conversely, there's the perhaps exaggerated examples of things like the Romans designing a rudimentary steam engine but never really bothering to try and make commercial use of that party trick. Europe is full of coal and metal ore but why dig all that up to build trains and other machinery when horses work so well?

Anyway. Here's an opinion that I have about history that is genuinely controversial among historians, but which I think most people (rightly) believe (although it certainly can be taken too far): I believe in a sort of soft technological determinism. I think that, obviously, even in periods in which technology changes at a glacial pace such as the paleolithic (pun intended), society does change, things happen, there is politics, there is war, there is migration. It's not like technology is the only driver of the machinations of human society. But, I do think that technology is the biggest driver, and the only driver of change at a truly large scale, and that technological accumulation is the thing which gives history its arrow, it's the force and indeed the only force which has caused the world of today to look so substantially different from the world of 5,000 or 30,000 years ago. Technology isn't the only thing that matters, but it probably matters more than anything else.

Obviously this is controversial among historians at least in part because it puts at the very center of their object of study (history) something which, especially as regards the modern period, cannot be understood principally via their own methodologies. To understand, you know, machines and shit, you've gotta know math and science, above and beyond whatever you know about history and the historical method. And in addition to being inconvenient that's sort of insulting, if you're a historian. "Hey, this is my thing! Get your grubby hands off it!" Well, it is what it is.

[d007saysthings]

In other words, you didn't read the essay and are upset at some of the things you managed to skim. Presumably the fact that intersectionality was used as a tool instead of a cudgel. The fact that the deportation of 7 million people is impossible. The fact that the world is not a place of angels and devils, where all we need to do is separate the two.

Or maybe you did read it and were so upset you thought none of the dozens of people who read your posts would notice that you took the very first sentence out of context.

I can only guess, as you are as sanctimonious as always.

"scorn" you say, lol

But do tell, what sacrifices have you made that separate you from people who go to and speak at protests?

The student protestors referred to pretty much all got away with a slap on the wrist. "Unimaginable" you say.

The people who read short form essays on tumblr or on the NYT generally try to avoid jailtime. In fact, even convicts try to avoid it.

You can of course easily envision individuals who suffer under the boot of the state, but the fact that you feel for them does not mean you suffer the same way they do. Not even close.

But maybe you have invested much more time into your community and that's the reason you are both so passionate and so incredibly bad at reading, in which case, both Smith and I would concede that you are much more worthy of praise and recognition than either of us.

But I ain't holding my breath on that one. The classic dumbass leftie way with which you try to ascribe motivation instead of grappling with the things said is emblematic of the usual kind of keyboard warriors.

Since the publication of her debut novel, White Teeth (2000), Zadie Smith has been a darling of tastemakers across the Atlantic.  Much of her ensuing work feels like a love letter to the forces who anointed her into literary stardom.  Twenty-four years on, she continues to repay the favor. 

Her reflections on student activism in The New Yorker (where else?) represent a milestone in the venerable genre of Self-Important-Liberal-Novelist-Giving-Unwanted-Advice-To-Wayward-Youth-And-Uncouth-Radicals.  Most entries in the genre are merely obtuse and sanctimonious; Smith manages to also be sloppy and misinformed.  Give her credit.  She’s mastered the trick for which the haut monde sent her off into the world.  While positioning herself as a Deep Thinker detached from primitive loyalties, Smith painstakingly tethers expressions of ambiguity to the status quo, the most primal loyalty of all. 

Let’s examine the essay’s most egregious failures one-by-one: 

—In the first line, Smith writes, “A philosophy without a politics is common enough.”  It’s not at all common.  In fact, a philosophy without a politics is impossible.  Only a mind afflicted by upper-class rot could think otherwise. 

—Smith speaks of activism that can lead to arrest or other forms of punishment, concluding that it “represent[s] a level of personal sacrifice unimaginable to many of us.”  This royal “us” betrays Smith’s position as outsider and poseur.  In reality, sacrifice is eminently imaginable to the countless people who have chosen to act on their conscience and subsequently languished in prison, lost jobs and careers, or suffered exile and ostracism.  It is eminently imaginable to the very students on whom Smith lavishes so much scorn.  They are being punished in horrible ways and yet they keep going.  Sacrifice isn’t unimaginable to “many of us.”  It is unimaginable to Smith and her cohort of frivolous lickspittles.  This she confirms a few sentences later with what is supposed to be a droll anecdote about her inability to give up travel to New York for the sake of the environment.  “What pitiful ethical creatures we are (I am)!” she laments.  This singular (and parenthetical) flash of self-awareness, meant to be ironic and thus venial, is the only aspect of the essay worth the reader’s attention. 

[d007saysthings]

I (try to) fall under the "if you think one side is always right, you are either supremely immature or a have fallen victim to tribalism", as well as the "you can't exactly kill or imprison a large portion of the population for wrongthink so you might as well negotiate with them" strain of centrism.

Pretty much every online political opinion is expressed arrogantly but you gotta understand it's hard not to be when people unironically seem to ignore basic facts of reality, such as "war is hell" and "the other side isn't acting out of pure malice or even selfishness" just because it suits their dogma.

Do I make the cut?

i dont think i have gotten quite as radicalized against something in the last few years as i have been radicalized against "centrism". i have found two mayor strains of it, one stupider than the other. the first is just disengenious, liying scumbag grifters who claim to be centrists and yet support the right on literally everything and do nothing but attack the left.

and the other strain is this stupid, thought terminating cliche of "the truth is always somewhere in the middle". and honestly i almost feel these guys are worse because they affect this stupid air of enlightment and reasonableness and good natured common sense when the truth is they dont have the basic mental faculties to actually examine the facts and they dont have the basic moral fiber to actually say that something is good or bad. faux folksy wisdom gets on my nerves like very few things do

[d007saysthings]

Well it's more along the lines of "we the locals "cultivate this land" (i.e. make our living in this general area) so we have more of a right to saying how it's run".

Furthermore, there's a general trend of tourists being rowdy, since they figure the locals will take clean up after them anyway. They're on holiday after all.

And the fact that tourist-heavy spots tend to center the economies around tourism makes them beholden to these sometimes rich, often obnoxious people.

A few years of the above adding up and locals will start to develop a "we have a right to this place and noone else" mindset.

One of the things I'm not particularly sympathetic about is complaints about tourists in a "we, the locals, have a right to this place, and no one else".

All land, everywhere, and the resources on it, is the collective inheritance of all humanity. This is the basis of my views on open borders and LVT. Anyone who wants to move to a place out to be able to live there; If this drives up the cost of housing that's a problem of building housing, not a problem of people of the wrong race moving there. Anything else is inevitably blood-and-soil rhetoric screened through anti-colonialism. (The problem with colonialism wasn't "people moving to a place", it was the violence and the genocide)

I do give exception for sacred locations and for environemental protections; but if we need to limit the number of people living or using a location for the latter, that still gets rationed out among "everyone on earth", not just "locals".