nonsense-and-puzzlement

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Wikipedia is lost to our friends across the waters.

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hey bro can i ask you a question that will reveal a deep and fundamental gap in my knowledge of the world

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there's been plenty of pushback against youtube's plan to age-check users by using an AI to analyze everyone's watching habits, but amidst that, i spotted this playlist circulating among some teens:

(picture is a reconstruction to protect the kids identity)

interesting! they're trying to trick the AI by watching videos that have a primarily adult viewer demographic? well im a curious fella so naturally i have to take a look-see, and

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[“The Roman Catholic Church’s definition of incest is one of the most intriguing features of medieval marriage. Neither the Old nor New Testament provided any basis for it. But in the mid-sixth century, church synods began to denounce as incestuous the Old Testament practice of marrying a brother’s widow. Also, during the sixth and seventh centuries bishops began condemning marriage to first and second cousins, stepmothers or stepdaughters, and the widows of uncles. In 721, Pope Gregory II even forbade marriage with the godmother of one’s child or with the mother of one’s godchild.

A few decades later marriage was forbidden up to the seventh degree of separation, or “as far as memory could go back.” This made it illegal to marry a descendant of one’s great-great-great-great-great-grandfather! By the end of the eighth century it was incestuous to marry in-laws, the kin of godparents or godchildren, or a relative of someone you had once had sexual intercourse with. It was also forbidden to marry a relative of someone you had previously promised but failed to marry. These prohibitions were so broad that almost any match could be ruled invalid. One historian notes that, at least in theory, the incest rules prohibited young village men from wedding “all the marriageable girls they could possibly know and a great many more besides.”

[…]

On the other hand, because the rules were so routinely ignored at the time of marriage, they could later be used to invalidate an existing marriage. A claim of incest provided an escape clause from the Church’s strictures against divorce. A married couple, or one of the pair, who desired a divorce might suddenly discover that the marriage had been incestuous all along. In the late eleventh century the Count of Anjou was able to repudiate five of his own marriages by dint of diligent genealogical research. In 1152 the divorce of King Louis VII of France and Eleanor of Aquitaine was approved when the couple pointed out that they were related within four or five degrees. The excuse served, even though this had been common knowledge at the time of their wedding and Louis’s next wife, Constance of Castile, was even more closely related to him than Eleanor had been. As one historian notes, the church’s “abhorrence of incest provided a gap in the laws of monogamy through which a king . . . could drive a coach and horses.”

In 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council narrowed the definition of incest to four degrees of separation. The council’s stated aim was to enforce the modified ban more stringently. But popes continued to grant dispensations for political or financial gain. Under the papacy of Boniface IV (1389-1404), marital dispensations were openly available for sale, with a sliding fee scale based on the value of the concession being sought.”]

stephanie coontz, from marriage, a history: from obedience to intimacy, or how love conquered marriage, 2005

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Heterosexual relationship culture is so alien to me and I don’t know if it’s the fact I’m not cishet or the fact I’m autistic but I hear so many things that make me go “Am I insane or are they?”

There’s a lot of hate on widowers and I saw a woman say “You cannot compete with a dead woman.” which is perhaps a reasonable statement to say if he’s constantly comparing you to his dead partner but that wasn’t what the post was about. And I realized “Oh my God, these people genuinely feel like they’re constantly in competition with their spouse’s exes and the ex being dead makes them feel insecure that they cannot best her.”

There’s also been an uptick in the ‘men and women cannot be ‘just’ friends’ rhetoric which I feel like is extremely dangerous and reflects the rise of fascism and sexism. Some of these stories of women feeling threatened by their husband’s female best friend have some merit and others are like “I feel angry that my husband still talks to the girl he grew up next door to and she and her wife are invited to family gatherings and included in family photos sometimes. Am I right to be suspicious?” No. No you’re not. I cannot imagine being you and living with that high level of stress and paranoia and constant torment and jealousy about your husband having a positive relationship with anyone who isn’t you.

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This morning my child (soon to be 3) requested that I make him toast "with creamy peanut butter on the bottom and crunchy peanut butter on the top."

ME: You mean put peanut butter on both sides?

HIM: Yes.

ME, getting into "sometimes kids have to experience the natural consequences of their actions" parenting mode: Okay, I'll do it, but you know that's gonna be really messy, right?

He insisted, and then when it was, indeed, really messy, he sobbed inconsolably on the floor. I offered to make him regular toast, or a sandwich of peanut butter toast, or a triple-decker tower of toast slices, or any other iteration of peanut butter and toast, but nothing made it better. His vision had not come to fruition. He was crushed.

His dad was in a Zoom meeting upstairs—we're all home because it's a snow day—and came down to find out what terrible ill had befallen us to cause so much wailing.

"Oh," he said. "I see. You wanted non-Euclidean geometry. Hypertoast."

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BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER      (3x08) ʟᴏᴠᴇʀꜱ ᴡᴀʟᴋ

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hey y'all i know that we'd all love to take the new lord up on his offer of wine and merriment in his halls, but we ALL know it's a trap to lure us into solving the phantasm problem haunting his ancient abode which has undoubtedly caused him many sleepless nights. i remind you that he was WELL warned by all three elder councils in the surrounding villages (which, by the way, includes the sole survivor of the last noble massacre) and he didn't listen. so those are his ghosts now to do with what he will and anyone stepping up to alleviate him of his griefs is a fool, a traitor, and an imperial apologist

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goodbye youtube i was more or less out of videos to watch anyway

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an imperfect ally is better than a perfect bystander

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“Go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

— Kurt Vonnegut (via lazypacific)

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I want one of those scenes in a dude bro film where “tomboy” chick has to wear a dress to go undercover or whatever, but instead of the guys drooling as she walks down the stairs, they’re like “k. U need to stop. Go put the cargo pants back on. You look super uncomfortable and awkward in that. Brutus, you go be the fake prostitute.”

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if ever i need to feel pure love and joy in my life once again i simply rewatch jason' brown's riverdance routine:

(and if you're going why does he look familiar yes, he was also the guy with the cotton eye joe routine, the can't touch this routine and more recently, the backsteet boys routine)

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Few modern Museums were built under the direction of an actual Muse, even fewer were supervised by a genuine Um.