rootika

[rootika]

Resisting tyranny takes a lot of forms.

[rootika]

All this Kurtzman/Section 31 stuff reminds me that not enough people have seen (or understood, I guess) Star Trek:Deep Space Nine.

Because it gets described as "it made the Federation a morally gray society instead of a utopia!" or "it fought back against Roddenberry's vision for the Federation and Star Trek!" and it's like... did you watch the same show?

DS9 didn't think the federation was any less of a utopia, than TNG or TOS or VOY, it said EVEN IN A UTOPIA, THERE WILL BE CHALLENGES, THERE WILL BE USURPERS, THERE WILL BE SNAKES IN THE GARDEN: THAT IS WHY WE MUST FIGHT!

Homefront/Paradise lost are about how even in a utopia, authoritarians will sell fear and get people to give up their freedoms. Fascists will burn the Reichstag to create a crisis they can exploit.

Doctor Bashir, I Presume showed that for a society without money, people still worry about success, and their legacy, and they'll do horrible things to their children to make sure they can be that legacy. And the episode CLEARLY DISAPPROVES OF THIS! The man responsible realizes the error of his ways and submits to punishment to save his son.

I don't want to list examples all day, I have other stuff to do, but DS9 very much didn't say "utopias aren't real, every so-called utopia has evil somewhere in the foundations", it said that utopias are something you have to fight to maintain. You can't take the easy answers, listen to the fascists promising safety, and avoid examining the faults of your society. Sorry. But the good news is that you can, you can win, and you aren't alone.

DS9 was aiming for more of a "realistic utopia" than other Treks, it's true, but despite that realism it still said a utopia was possible. It used that realism to show that a better world must still be fought for. And it warned against anyone selling easy solutions to those battles.

Because as has been pointed out recently, fascists don't sell eternal war and oppression to the in-group: they promise safety and power and belonging and prosperity. They're gonna oppress them to save us.

DS9 said those men are not to be trusted, and must be opposed. It won't be easy, there will be struggles, but they will be stopped. The world will get better. We can do this, together.

I don't know about you, but I find that more optimistic than if they hadn't, and just said The Federation is Perfect Forever.

[rootika]

Roman mosaic floor discovered under a vineyard in Negrar di Valpolicella, Veneto.

[rootika]

Kawase Hasui (1883-1957) — Ikegami Honmon-ji Temple [woodblock print, 1931]

[rootika]

The Creative Act of Listening to a Talking Frog

Kermit the Frog gives a talk on creativity and creative risk-taking

[rootika]

[rootika]

I don’t WANT a career. I want to cuddle and sleep and eat and read and create and love and be loved.

[rootika]

me having a weird time: man this weird time sucks! i don't feel like myself! i wish i was having a normal time!

me having a normal time: well the weird time did have a certain je ne sais quoi...

[rootika]

[rootika]

Happy Threshold Day Eve!

[rootika]

Computer Chronicles - Best Online Computer Games (1998)

[rootika]

Found several packs' worth of pokemon cards strewn across a target parking lot and took a pic to show my friends without realizing how much my outfit elevated the scene to "aftermath of a wizard duel"

[rootika]

There is also the official Internet Archive Wayback Machine Browser Extension.

This Extension can instantly save the page you are currently viewing in the Wayback Machine. You can also have it set up so that any page that wasn't previously/recently saved is saved automatically when you visit.

Here's the extension page with the feature list for the firefox extension (also availabel for chrome, edge and safari)

I feel like folks talking like Tumblr is the last bastion of reason on the Internet are forgetting that the owner of Tumblr is demonstrably cut from the same cloth as Zuckerberg and Musk. Tumblr's moderation polices aren't less bigoted, they're just less competently implemented.

[rootika]

[rootika]

another thought about "gen z and gen alpha don't know how to use computers, just phone apps" is that this is intentionally the direction tech companies have pushed things in, they don't want users to understand anything about the underlying system, they want you to just buy a subscription to a thing and if it doesn't do what you need it to, you just upgrade to the more expensive one. users who look at configuration files are their worst nightmare

[rootika]