scarletspider-lily

[scarletspider-lily]

Just in case any of you are confused, TikTok being banned and coming back not even 24 hours later with a giant "we thank President Trump" message is NOT a win. It's a huge red flag and a sign that this was a thousand percent planned.

[scarletspider-lily]

i find it funny that conservatives try to paint me calling for the death and destruction of multi-billionaire CEOs as some radical "woke liberal" standpoint. as if that even has anything to do with politics, especially in this era of surface level circus politics. the same way they try to politicize the hurricanes or the wildfires destroying parts of america, as if climate change is somehow a red vs. blue issue. it's no secret i'm from a deeply conservative family in the sticks of florida and i still grew up hearing "i fought the law and the law won". the healthcare system has fucked each and every member of my family in a different way at one point or another, as is the case with pretty much every family in this scorched earth nation. remember when country music, the genre currently associated the heaviest with the most conservative faction of america, used to be staunchly anti-government and about sticking it to the man? remember when the coal miners, grandfathers to the "trump-er hillbillies" of appalachia that everyone loves to write off as ignorant, fought tooth and nail for unionization because the companies that were built off their labor didn't give a shit if they lived or died? since when has "upholding traditional values" gone hand in hand with... defending lawmakers and oil tycoons. my family and i complain about the same issues at the dinner table. the men in charge better hope they can keep their digital smokescreens running as long as they can because the moment the rednecks and the hippies lay down their swords long enough to realize they have the same enemy, all hell is gonna break loose.

[scarletspider-lily]

for the last fucking time, tiktok getting banned is BAD. this is a huge free speech concern. it's rooted in sinophobia. and it will set a really bad precedent that allows the government to ban any platform that doesn't let them control the media narrative

[scarletspider-lily]

Adding into the discussion of the incarcerated young people fighting fires in California:

I can think of no place worse than prison for emotionally stunting or regressing a person or for dismantling their ability to make good decisions.

You take an adult or child who maybe has exhibited some antisocial behaviors, right? So you remove them from whatever community and support network they have, put enormous financial and logistical barriers between them and any communication with that community. Incarcerate them hours from home in a place not accessible by train or plane with narrow visiting hours that conflict with people's work schedules, and maybe you're fighting to prevent in person visits at all, maybe you got a kickback from a company selling expensive video call visits so people can't even hug their kids when they drive 6 hours on a Wednesday to see them. Get a kickback from a phone service provider that's going to charge extortionate prices for every minute a person spends talking to their loved ones, and if the state passes a law saying you can't do that anymore, pivot and go after the mail. Subvert USPS. Get a kickback from a company that'll give prisoners shitty scans of letters or refuse to deliver it because it was flagged for drug contamination by a machine with a 70% false positive rate, force them instead to send texts at extortionate rates through their proprietary app.

Put them in an environment with a bunch of other people with social issues and force them to compete for resources. Give them no mental healthcare. If they are victimized by other prisoners, punish the victims with solitary confinement. Transfer people around so they can't form meaningful long-term friendships. Tell them that once they get out, it will be illegal for them to talk to any of the people they meet here.

Hire guards who have no qualifications other than a willingness to be a modern day slave overseer or the ignorance to not realize that's what it is, give them complete control over every aspect of other people's lives and tell them those people want to kill them and that any object can be covered in drugs so dangerous that touching them can kill. Allow the guards to traffic drugs into the prison with impunity. Have the guards discourage racial mixing because racial conflict in the prison means the prisoners won't join up against the staff.

You do all of this and you ask if a 20-year-old, who's been in the system since 14, is emotionally mature or psychologically healthy enough to choose to risk their life in exchange for slightly better living arrangements.

You take someone who has probably made some bad decisions, right? And you put them in a place where every detail of every day is decided for them: what they eat, when they eat, when they sleep, where they sleep, what clothes they wear, who they talk to, where they work. Or maybe you give them big decisions that have no right answer. Maybe at the start of the day, you open the cells and they have 10 minutes to decide if they want to be stuck in their cell all day - no shower, no recreation, no library - or go outside and be stuck in genpop all day - no napping, no alone time, no escape if someone is hassling you. You let them decide if they're going to eat breakfast at 3am (because there's too many meal shifts) or sleep in and spend their precious commissary funds on toaster strudel (they have no toaster) or sleep in and not eat even though you're barely giving them 1000 calories a day. You let them start to make decisions about how to spend their day, then you put them on lockdown, take all those decisions away.

You do all this and then you ask if anyone who's spent time in this environment has the decision-making skills to choose to risk their life in exchange for slightly better living arrangements.

All of the incarcerated firefighters in California are 18 or older, and all of them volunteered, but there is no world in which they were adequately prepared to make that decision.

[scarletspider-lily]

every now and again, i try to put my grievances with christianity into a well-articulated speech but it ends up snowballing and becoming a beast of an argument. does anyone else feel this way?

[scarletspider-lily]

on the topic of christianity, I don't understand why someone would WANT god to be real. I understand the comfort that would bring, but that would mean hell is real too. Why would you want an option for people to go to hell? How does the idea of innocent people suffering for an eternity not bring you to your knees in sadness? You're telling me that not only that a person could go to hell no matter how good they were because they didn't "know god", but you, as a "loving" christian, are telling me that they SHOULD?? How selfish is it to want god to be real, knowing that it means that many people on this earth will be condemned to an eternity of suffering??

What loving god would even allow any of his children to go to hell? If you saw your child (or any child really) was about to walk into a busy road, you would rush to pull them back. Sure that would be violating their free will to walk into the road, but is that not better than death? You wouldn't scream for them to stop at the sidelines, you would (hopefully) run to stop them. And yet all god does (if he's real) is sit on the sidelines and let us all burn. fuck that.

[scarletspider-lily]

[scarletspider-lily]

Probably the thing I think highlighted most in the UnitedHealthcare assassination is how everyone is considered expendable by these companies - even their ceos.

The rest of the board reportedly stepped through the active crime scene to get to a meeting and replaced him the day after.

These oligarchs are crying "this unique man had a family, why don't you care?" When they treat him as easily replaceable themselves.

It's just about them.

Each individual wants people to care about just them. But these CEOs and their constituents, their boards of trustees, these millionaires and billionaires, they don't care about each other. Just their money.

No one cares, not even the people claiming to be "on his side."

A man was killed, yes. Even though he gained his wealth by hurting people, he should have had a chance to make it right. (Even though he wouldn't)

Are these other billionaires going to have a realization that they could help people and get goodwill, to prevent this from happening to them? No. For them it's all about "how dare these peasants" and "it could have been me, and that would have been a tragedy! I'm irreplaceable! People would get sad if I died!"

Should they have a chance to do better, and not get replaced by another dime-a-dozen oligarch via bullet?

...I'd have to say yes.

But whether or not they get that chance- and use it wisely- is up to them.

[scarletspider-lily]

something interesting is happening

[scarletspider-lily]

[scarletspider-lily]

'People are panicking about AI tools the same way they did when the calculator was invented, stop worrying' cannot stress enough the calculator did not forcibly pervade every aspect of our lives, has such a low error rate it's a statistical anomaly when it does happen, isn't built on mass plagiarism, and does not obliterate the fucking environment when you use it. Be so fucking serious right now

[scarletspider-lily]

in real life you will probably not respond to harassment in a sexy, clever, scripted way where you come out with the upper hand and everyone claps. you will freeze up and your moment will pass, or your voice will shake when you tell them to stop and you’ll realize two minutes later that you’re gross and sweaty and sticky from the adrenaline. maybe you’ll be on the ball and answer in a way you actually think is pretty smart and get ignored, or they’ll get more aggressive when you mouth off to them. you almost never will walk away feeling victorious. you walk away feeling uncomfortable and relieved that it’s over. you’ll think about it later and imagine that maybe you could have said something else. maybe you’ll feel ashamed that you weren’t quicker-witted, weren’t able to cut them down to size, weren’t able to avoid that lingering sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, as though there’s some kind of magical words you could have said that would have left you feeling less powerless. there really aren’t. 

[scarletspider-lily]

Even though science is not and should never be seen or treated as a religion, the thing that makes it better than religion is the ability to say "I don't know" or "I was wrong."

But with most religions being built on beliefs, they've backed themselves into a corner because admitting to not knowing or being wrong can cause a domino effect with you questioning more and more things.

In Christianity, for example, God is believed to be omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. So it goes without saying that they'll claim that God can and will give you exactly what you want or need just as long as you believe in him.

And then that doesn't happen. You bring that up to a Christian and they will very likely start coming up with excuses like you not trying hard enough, the time not being right or whatever you asked for not being part of God's plan.

If they outright admit that God isn't always around and will give you what you prayed for, you'll start asking questions. Like, "Why are we praising Him for always being there when that isn't the case?" or "Why is He refusing to give me this thing when it's what aligns with what He wants for all or us?" And especially "What's the point of this?" Which can apply to many things but often pops up in relation to the senseless death of a loved one or an innocent person in general.

Of course, you are told to go to the Bible for answers, possibly on your own this time, and you start to notice a lot of problems.

Like how God seems to have a thing for killing children even when their sins can be easily forgiven or if he's using them as punishment (ie. The group of boys who got mauled by a bear for making fun of an old man or the death of David's newborn child because he killed a man just to steal his wife).

Or how He unfairly punishes innocent people (ie. The pharaoh, who was not told that Sarah was a married woman, got punished for trying to woo who he assumed was an unmarried woman or the families of the men who framed Daniel. They got fed to lions as well despite playing no part in it.)

Or just the amount of things that don't make any logical sense (ie. There is a point in the Bible where God freezes the sun in place so a guy can keep fighting a war. But we know now that the sun doesn't actually move from its spot. The other planets revolve around it. And wouldn't an all-knowing God give his followers that kind of wisdom so a person with even an inkling of knowledge about the solar system won't be able to disprove it?)

With the Bible being a common reason why a lot of people tend to leave Christianity, the building blocks for your deconstruction journey have probably been built.

[scarletspider-lily]

like at the end of the day the reason why i find people condemning people's glee at the ceo shooting laughable is like. why are you expecting the american public to have any sympathy for someone who was responsible for major heartlessness and apathy to people's literal survival. do you not see how silly you sound. like if you think murder is always bad thats cool thats u. but stop being so shocked about the reactions my guy

[scarletspider-lily]

so you should hate the revolutionary war, huh? (on morals and the recent CEO murder)

The United Healthcare CEO murder has really got me thinking this week about morality and all that, especially after hearing opinions from friends.

and i'm going to sound insane, but the moral standards people have really show how evangelical america is, even though most of the people i've talked to aren't evangelical. the way things are defined solely in one way, sensationalized, and taken to face value. there are quite a few people saying that glorifying a murder is disgusting, murder is murder, and sentiments of the sort. what they aren't seeing are the murders of thousands of average civilians because of denied claims. but what does it take? for americans, sympathy involves seeing people shot on the news. sympathy involves lining 'em up by the thousands and executing them by firing squad, preferably in a middle eastern country. sympathy involves seeing thousands of crying family members who look beautiful and innocent, a fragile spouse in a heterosexual, god-pleasing marriage to be protected through her tears.

without actually seeing how any deaths happened, there's really no sympathy. instead, we get defiance for people cheering a supposedly heinous crime. of course, this doesn't surprise me- even self defense murders are frowned upon by some.

i wonder how these people feel when they read history books and see generals tearing down the british army for independence and financial sovereignity. for how white colonists defended their families from supposed native violence (because vice versa is too controversial). any glorified violence, after americas bloody imperalist colonial history, is suddenly ignored for- "but- but he literally shot someone! that's messed up!" and some i've talked to have tried to lie and say they dont condone those murders, either. dont condone americas history- yet, they turn around and defend the country's creation and values, upholding patriotism and continuing to think about issues from a strict legal perspective. you don't have unique moral standards. you just like the law and the status quo.

if those two things turn against you, i hope you receive help for whatever situation you find yourself in, as you aren't willing to fight back.

[scarletspider-lily]

"Don't you miss being a child" no

"What's so great about being an adult" well for one it is illegal to hit me and I kinda like that

[scarletspider-lily]