hotandcoldaf

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Can you say something about fat people that doesn’t involve the phrase “tummy squish” or any variants thereof. Quickly

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ily, menswear guy

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can’t get over when famous gangster lucky luciano was like “hey lansky seems like quite a hassle getting all those nazis offa your terf you want us to help ya out” and meyer “Left Russia Because of Pogroms and Became A Gangster In The US” lansky was like “no. no getting to beat the shit out of nazis is reward enough for us. sorry lucky this one’s personal don’t worry about it”

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Has anything actually gotten better, for all the work you talk about doing? Or is it just treading water in misery forever?

Anon, ten years ago gay people couldn't get married in large parts of the US. AIDS was an almost certain death sentence when I was in high school. I was looking at job boards the other day and found a part time gas station job that had health insurance as a benefit, which NEVER would have happened 15 years ago. When I was a kid, hitting your child was extremely normalized in the US and my parents were the weird ones for not doing it. There is a vaccine for chicken pox. I didn't meet anyone who had transitioned until my 20s because it was so uncommon to transition in the aughts, and now there are some states that protect your right to have gender affirming care provided by your health insurance. It's not all states, but it's better than the number of states that had it in 2010, which was zero. THERE ARE TENANTS UNIONS NOW. WE HAVE A VACCINE AGAINST CERVICAL CANCER.

And all of that has been the work of a lot of individuals and organizations and research teams and activists.

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Jewish culture is exclaiming, “jesus christ!” at mild inconveniences

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your honour i understand that it is treason to release classified documents about military equipment but you saw what that guy on the forum said i couldn't just let someone be that wrong

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gotta love the mics

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the default way for things to taste is good. we know this because "tasty" means something tastes good. conversely, from the words "smelly" and "noisy" we can conclude that the default way for things to smell and sound is bad. interestingly there are no corresponding adjectives for the senses of sight and touch. the inescapable conclusion is that the most ordinary object possible is invisible and intangible, produces a hideous cacophony, smells terrible, but tastes delicious. and yet this description matches no object or phenomenon known to science or human experience. so what the fuck

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Hello. I mean this really imploringly, and really genuinely. If you're a U.S. citizen still on the fence about what to do for the election, please vote Harris. There's this idea circulating that the person you vote for should be someone you like, love, idolize and that is so very not true. You're voting for the opponent you'll face for the next four years when you have issues to protest and matters to vocalize. You're voting for the person most likely to give an inch when you protest the things that matter. You're voting for the person most likely to not strip away your existing rights and scatter your focus across the things we already won, and which can be taken away. We lost Roe v Wade under the Trump-appointed judges. The current trans-panic is so disgustingly on fire, and it's absolutely the Republicans eager to rip away what little protection there is. Both candidates are also, disgustingly, pro-Israel. But Trump will never ever give a fuck to any protest on that matter.

You don't want to be complicit in genocide. I get it. But if you're a U.S. citizen, you're already benefiting from the U.S.'s foreign policy, and that's already complacency. Refusing to vote or voting third party isn't absolving you of that. It's just letting Trump walk in the door. And letting Trump in is complacency. And your ability to organize, and to make change, will go so less far against a Trump cabinet than a Harris one. The material harm under Trump is real.

Does voting for Harris make you feel guilty? I'm sorry, but you have to bear it. Your guilt isn't what's important. A white person's guilt isn't important. A citizen of a global terror's guilt isn't important. Actions that pacify your guilt aren't important. Focusing on absolving your guilt is in fact harmful, as opposed to actions that can actually materially reduce harm.

Please protest. Please donate to good causes. Please support Palestine. Please be vocal. Please fight for BIPOC and LGBTQA+ rights. Please view Harris as the opponent whose ears these things fall on. Your ability to organize safely, largely, loudly, and effectively will go so much further under a Harris presidency. Please.

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Even Weird Al has had that™ experience with Tony Hawk

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condescending online man day

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I'm so fascinated by languages with different levels of formality built in because it immediately introduces such complex social dynamics. The social distance between people is palpable when it's built right into the language, in a way it's not really palpable in English.

So for example. I speak Spanish, and i was taught to address everyone formally unless specifically invited otherwise. People explained to me that "usted" was formal, for use with strangers, bosses, and other people you respect or are distant from, while "tú" is used most often between family and good friends.

That's pretty straightforward, but it gets interesting when you see people using "tú" as a form of address for flirting with strangers, or for picking a fight or intimidating someone. In other languages I've sometimes heard people switch to formal address with partners, friends or family to show when they are upset. That's just so interesting! You're indicating social and emotional space and hierarchy just in the words you choose to address the other person as "you"!!

Not to mention the "what form of address should I use for you...?" conversation which, idk how other people feel about it, but to me it always felt awkward as heck, like a DTR but with someone you're only just becoming comfortable with. "You can use tú with me" always felt... Weirdly intimate? Like, i am comfortable around you, i consider you a friend. Like what a vulnerable thing to say to a person. (That's probably also just a function of how i was strictly told to use formal address when i was learning. Maybe others don't feel so weird about it?)

And if you aren't going to have a conversation about it and you're just going to switch, how do you know when? If you switch too soon it might feel overly familiar and pushy but if you don't switch soon enough you might seem cold??? It's so interesting.

Anyway. As an English-speaking American (even if i can speak a bit of Spanish), i feel like i just don't have a sense for social distance and hierarchy, really, simply because there isn't really language for it in my mother tongue. The fact that others can be keenly aware of that all the time just because they have words to describe it blows my mind!

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yet again bashing my pointer at the enormous sign that says "it's not that [witches/goblins/vampires/motherfucking krampus] are necessarily specifically jew-coded in an antisemitic way - though they may be and in fact often are, but you do have to take that part case by case - so much as it is that the entire european idea of what is monstrous is so deeply intertwined with ideas of jews as inhuman outsiders that some of that is going to leak in from the groundwater no matter what you do".

do not piss on the poor about this post i do not have it in me.

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Do you play daily NY Times games like Wordle, Connections, Spelling Bee, or Strands? The NYT Tech Guild workers who make those games possible are currently ON STRIKE and asking you to not cross the digital picket line.

Spread the word! For other ways to help, you can also contribute to their strike fund here.

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Reading articles about MrBeast's dominance of YouTube is fucking bizarre because, from my perspective, the dude isn't even on YouTube. I've never watched one of his videos. YouTube has, to the best of my knowledge, never recommended one of his videos to me. Every thumbnail screenshot of his looks like something you could tell me was a photoshopped parody of YouTube culture, and I'd believe you. No one I follow on YouTube ever mentions him, even negatively or in passing. The first time I ever heard his name was in regards to the quality of his ghost kitchens. The only way I know he isn't a mass, shared hallucination is that I've witnessed the thoroughly mid-looking chocolate bars he sells at Walmart for some reason