#92 awards

[cuntvonkrolock]

it's so sad that some people think theatre is some big, lofty thing that you can only do if you're professionally trained. theatre is for everybody, and that includes people who aren't trained!! even if you don't want to act, you can still be involved in theatre if that's what you want to do!!!

[redgoldsparks]

My very last comic for The Nib! End of an era! Transcription below the cut. instagram / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my book / redbubble

The first event I went to with GENDER QUEER was in NYC in 2019 at the Javits Center.

So many of the people who came to my signing were librarians, and so many of them said the same thing: "I know exactly who I want to give this to!" Maia: "Thank you for helping readers find my book!" While working on the book, I was genuinely unsure if anyone outside of my family and close friends would read it. But the early support of librarians and two American Library Association awards helped sell two print runs in first year.

Since then, GENDER QUEER been published in 8 languages, with more on the way: Spanish, Czech, Polish, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portugese and Dutch.

It has also been the most banned book in the United States for the past two years. The American Library Association has tracked an astronomical increase in book challenges over the past few years. Most of these challenges are to books with diverse characters and LGBTQ themes. These challenges are coming unevenly across the US, in a pattern that mirrors the legislative attacks on LGBTQ people. The Brooklyn Public Library offered free eCards to anyone in the US aged 13-21, in an effort to make banned books more available to young readers. A teacher in Norman, Oklahoma gave her students the QR code for the free eCard and lost her job. Summer Boismeir is now working for the Brooklyn Public Library. Hoopla and Libby/Overdrive, apps used to access digital library books, are now banned in Mississippi to anyone under 18. Some libraries won’t allow anyone under 18 to get any kind of library card without parental permission. When librarians in Jamestown, Michigan refused to remove GENDER QUEER and several other books, the citizens of the town voted down the library’s funding in the fall 2022 election. Without funding, the library is due to close in mid-2024. My first event since covid hit was the American Library Association conference in June 2022 in Washington, DC. Once again, the librarians in my signing line all had similar stories for me: “Your book was challenged in our district" "It was returned to the shelf!" "It was removed from the shelf..." "It was moved to the adult section."

Over and over I said: "Thank you. Thank you for working so hard to keep my book in your library. I’m sorry you had to defend it, but thank you for trying, even if it didn't work." We are at a crossroads of freedom of speech and censorship. The future of libraries, both publicly funded and in schools, are at stake. This is massively impacting the daily lives of librarians, teachers, students, booksellers, and authors around the country. In May 2023, I read an article from the Washington Post analyzing nearly 1000 of the book challenges from the 2021-2022 school year. I was literally on route to a festival to talk about book bans when I read a startling statistic. 60% of the 1000 book challenges were submitted by just 11 people. One man alone was responsible for 92 challenges. These 11 people seem to have made submitting copy-cat book challenges their full-time hobby and their opinions are having an outsized ripple effect across the nation. WE NEED TO MAKE THE VOICES SUPPORTING DIVERSE BOOKS AND OPPOSING BOOK BANS EVEN LOUDER. If you are able too, show up for your library and school board meetings when book challenges are debated. Send supportive comments and emails about the Pride book display and Drag Queen story hours. If you see a display you like– for Banned Book Week, AAPI Month, Black History Month, Disability Awareness Month, Jewish holidays, Trans Day of Remembrance– compliment a librarian! Make sure they feel the love stronger than the hate <3

Maia Kobabe, 2023

The Nib

[angeliagro]

Ed MTV Music Awards 92

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Fleetwood Mac - The Chain 1977

"The Chain" is a song by British-American rockband Fleetwood Mac, released on their 1977 album Rumours, which won Album of the Year at the 1978 Grammy Awards and received Diamond certifications in several countries, including the UK, Canada, Australia, and the US, in where it is certified 21× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). As of February 2023, Rumours has sold over 40 million copies worldwide, making it the 5th best-selling album of the 1970s and the 9th best-selling album of all time. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2003, and was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry in 2017, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress.

"The Chain" was created from combinations of several previously rejected materials, including solo work by Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, and Christine McVie. The song was assembled, often manually by splicing tapes with a razor blade, at the Record Plant in Sausalito, California, with engineers Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut. Stevie Nicks wrote the lyrics about Lindsey Buckingham as their relationship was falling apart. Buckingham and Nicks share lead vocals on the song.

In 1997, Fleetwood Mac released a live concert CD/DVD package called The Dance, which featured the reunion of the Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac members. The rendition of "The Chain" reached number 30 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. Additionally, the studio version began appearing on the charts in 2009, where it peaked at number 81 in the UK. In October 2023, the song was certified quadruple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for sales and streams of over 2,400,000 units.

"The Chain" received a total of 92% yes votes!

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #20

May 24-31 2024

The EPA awards $900 million to school districts across the country to replace diesel fueled school buses with cleaner alternatives. The money will go to 530 school districts across nearly every state, DC, tribal community, and US territory. The funds will help replace 3,400 buses with cleaner alternatives, 92% of the new buses will be 100% green electric. This adds to the $3 billion the Biden administration has already spent to replace 8,500 school buses across 1,000 school districts in the last 2 years.

For the first time the federal government released guidelines for Voluntary Carbon Markets. Voluntary Carbon Markets are a system by which companies off set their carbon emissions by funding project to fight climate change like investing in wind or solar power. Critics have changed that companies are using them just for PR and their funding often goes to projects that would happen any ways thus not offsetting emissions. The new guidelines seek to insure integrity in the Carbon Markets and make sure they make a meaningful impact. It also pushes companies to address emissions first and use offsets only as a last resort.

The IRS announced it'll take its direct file program nationwide in 2025. In 2024 140,000 tax payers in 12 states used the direct file pilot program and the IRS now plans to bring it to all Americans next tax season. Right now the program is only for simple W-2 returns with no side income but the IRS has plans to expand it to more complex filings in the future. This is one of the many projects at the IRS being funded through President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act.

The White House announced steps to boost nuclear energy in America. Nuclear power in the single largest green energy source in the country accounting for 19% of America's total energy. Boosting Nuclear energy is a key part of the Biden administration's strategy to reach a carbon free electricity sector by 2035. The administration has invested in bring the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan back on-line, and extending the life of Diablo Canyon in California. In addition the Military will be deploying new small modular nuclear reactors and microreactors to power its installations. The Administration is setting up a task force to help combat the delays and cost overruns that have often derailed new nuclear projects and the Administration is supporting two Gen III+ SMR demonstration projects to highlight the safety and efficiency of the next generation of nuclear power.

The Department of Agriculture announced $824 million in new funding to protect livestock health and combat H5N1. The funding will go toward early detection, vaccine research, and supporting farmers impacted. The USDA is also launching a nation wide Dairy Herd Status Pilot Program, hopefully this program will give us a live look at the health of America's dairy herd and help with early detection. The Biden Administration has reacted quickly and proactively to the early cases of H5N1 to make sure it doesn't spread to the human population and become another pandemic situation.

The White House announced a partnership with 21 states to help supercharge America's aging energy grid. Years of little to no investment in America's Infrastructure has left our energy grid lagging behind the 21st century tech. This partnership aims to squeeze all the energy we can out of our current system while we rush to update and modernize. Last month the administration announced a plan to lay 100,000 miles of new transmission lines over the next five years. The 21 states all with Democratic governors are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin.

The Department of Transportation announced $343 million to update 8 of America's oldest and busiest transportation stations for disability accessibility. These include the MBTA's the Green Line's light-rail B and C branches in Boston,  Cleveland's Blue Line, New Orleans'  St. Charles Streetcar route, and projects in San Francisco and New York City and other locations

The Department of interior announced two projects for water in Western states. $179 million for drought resilience projects in California and Utah and $242 million for expanding water access in California, Colorado and Washington. The projects should help support drinking water for 6.4 million people every year.

HUD announced $150 million for affordable housing for tribal communities. This adds to the over $1 billion dollars for tribal housing announced earlier in the month. Neil Whitegull of the Ho-Chunk Nation said at the announcement "I know a lot of times as Native Americans we've been here and we've seen people that have said, ‘Oh yeah, we'd like to help Indians.’ And they take a picture and they go away. We never see it, But there's been a commitment here, with the increase in funding, grants, and this administration that is bringing their folks out. And there's a real commitment, I think, to Native American tribes that we've never seen before."

Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged $135 million to help Moldavia. Since the outbreak of Russia's war against neighboring Ukraine the US has given $774 million in aid to tiny Moldavia. Moldavia has long been dependent on Russian energy but thanks to US investment in the countries energy security Moldavia is breaking away from Russia and moving forward with EU membership.

The US and Guatemala launched the "Youth With Purpose” initiative. The initiative will be run through the Central America Service Corps, launched in 2022 by Vice President Harris the CASC is part of the Biden Administration's efforts to improve life in Central America. The Youth With Purpose program will train 25,000 young Guatemalans and connect with with service projects throughout the country.

Bonus: Today, May 31st 2024, is the last day of the Affordable Connectivity Program. The program helped 23 million Americans connect to the internet while saving them $30 to $75 dollars every month. Despite repeated calls from President Biden Republicans in Congress have refused to act to renew the program. The White House has worked with private companies to get them to agree to extend the savings to the end of 2024. The Biden Administration has invested $90 Billion high-speed internet investments. Such as $42.45 billion for Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment, $1 billion for the The Middle Mile program laying 12,000 miles of regional fiber networks, and distributed nearly 30,000 connected devices to students and communities, including more than 3,600 through the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program

[landoslvr]

MRS TELEVISION | a. frederick

summary: a scroll through your internet presence as 'mrs television'. [social media AU.]

pairing: fem!reader x arthur frederick (arthurtv)

faceclaim: bri kerr

notes: first piece for mrs television out of the wag universe. bri is gonna be the main fc I use for mrs television, hopefully you like it!

liked by arthurtv, arthurfhill and 1,129 others

yourinstagram helped out on someone else's video for once, chris finally let me leave the dungeon!!!

view all 92 comments

user she kills me

user hottest producer award goes to...

chrismd_10 drinking on the job?

yourinstagram constantly

user she looks peppered in the 3rd slide

user first risky pic from y/n ever on the 6th slide

georgeclarkey thanks for the candid of me and my man 😌😌

arthurtv please someone get him away from me

user y/n's friend is inhaling that guinness 🫢

arthurtv great photography for the 1st and 3rd pictures, big fan!

yourinstagram humble as ever mr television

liked by georgeclarkey, wroetoshaw and 1,398 others

yourinstagram lots of fun at work recently, constantly mixing business and pleasure 🥂 chrismd thanks for keeping me employed even if I drink at work

view all 120 comments

user I can't tell if shes joking about drinking at work 😭

user its definitely a joke, most bts has y/n yelling at chris to pull his head in lol

user she keeps him in line!

yourinstagram have been going on 15 years

user we thank you for your service 🫡

arthurtv no jerseys at the match???

yourinstagram the nerve!

chrismd_10 who's that handsome fella in the last slide?

miniminter leave the md clutches and come to sidemen

yourinstagram throw in talia and you have a deal

georgeclarkey you drunk

yourinstagram seems to be the new normal now, just embracing my new brand (like you and your Invisalign ads)

georgeclarkey too far

liked by callux, arthurtv and 1,781 others

yourinstagram more of a traveller atm than a producer! enjoyed spain very very much, definitely swipe to the 8th slide to see what arthur classifies as a front flip

view all 328 comments

arthurtv it's called being flexible, you wouldn't know anything about it

yourinstagram your six-year-old sister does a better front flip than you

arthurtv leave flora out of this

user guys stop flirting in front of us 😭😭 the false hope hurts

georgeclarkey always appreciate meeting a fan

yourinstagram die

calfreezy that photo was sacred y/n

chrismd_10 I feel ashamed, embarrassed

willne the absolute cheek

user why is no one talking about how good y/n looks in these pictures??

faithlouisak Im thinking the same thing?

user literal island princess

user is that danny aarons in the 5th picture 😭😭

yourinstagram dont even ask how he got the invite

chrismd_10 we're still not sure tbh

liked by callux, arthurtv and 1,901 others

yourinstagram filmed a very *cool* video this week 🌨️

view all 234 comments

arthurtv again, who is your photographer???? such raw talent is exquisite

yourinstagram im very close to letting him go actually, you can have him!

user arthur being the first to comment on her posts fuels my mrs television heart really, give us something guys

user I love them at my core I can't lie

user she is just so pretty

chrismd_10 get back to work

yourinstagram I literally just want to breathe chris

user someone make chris let y/n go, she needs to be a free woman

bezhinga faiths phone is dead but she says 'u look leng'

yourinstagram I love you faith kelly x

liked by callux, arthurtv and 2,193 others

yourinstagram very good friends! (happy one year doofus)

view all 401 comments

user A WHOLE ASS YEAR???????

user who even are they????????

user I feel like I have been swindled here miss l/n

user can we finally call her mrs television??? shes more than chris' producer now, she's one of us

arthurtv best friends for life! (I love you very much)

user I can't tell if im going to cry or faint tbh

user why is he always playing chess, arthur PLEASE

yourinstagram I'm asking this question all the time?

chrismd_10 I take credit for this relationship btw

yourinstagram how so?

chrismd_10 if I hadn't sat with arthur in class and then dragged you into our group project, I like to think this wouldn't have happened

georgeclarkey I love all of the fans so much but please stop sending me these pictures of my fiancé wrapped around another woman

user GEORGE PLEASE

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

Ultramarines are a very popular first-time breed, and for good reason. They are tidy, efficient, easily trained, naturally obedient, and are one of the friendlier breeds. Unfortunately, they are also one of the more expensive breeds to keep due to their deep-seated need for bling.

Ultramarines LOVE bling. Wild Ultramarines will decorate their nests with statues of their pack leaders and scavenge for shiny metal to gild their armor. You may recall the Siege of '92 when a park's ornate railings, broad pavilions, and equestrian statues attracted a whole company of feral Ultramarines, who claimed it "for Ultramar" and drove off the visitors so they could build a nest. Astartes experts theorize that Ultramarines use bling to establish status and attract mates.

New owners should be prepared to purchase at least one marble sculpture and several gilded items for their Ultramarine's enclosure. They should also award him with medals and other decorations for his armor and weaponry. Upkeep is easy--as long as the owner provides their Ultramarine with sufficient supplies, he will clean and maintain his bling without prompting. Indeed, some Ultramarines find bling cleaning to be a calming activity.

Failing to invest in bling will cause a rapid downturn in mood. Initially, the blingless Ultramarine will vocalize frequently about "shame" and "dishonor" to express his distress. If the situation is not amended, he can become lethargic and withdrawn and may even grow a beard. Alternatively, he may become increasingly aggressive as he seeks to find or earn more bling. If an Ultramarine begins showing these signs, it is highly imperative for an owner to purchase more decorations for his enclosure, and to frequently assure him of his honor.

[surra-de-bunda]

Toni Braxton photographed by Nick Vaccaro for YSB Magazine (September 1996).

In June 1996, Braxton released her second album ‘Secrets’. Motivated "to include a little bit of everything," Braxton reteamed with Babyface, but also worked with R. Kelly, Tony Rich, and David Foster on the album, which she co-produced. A major success, it peaked at number two on the Billboard 200 and reached the top ten on most international charts. After 92 weeks in the charts, ‘Secrets’ was certified 8× platinum, becoming Braxton's second straight 8 million-seller. Internationally, Secrets sold more than 15 million copies, further cementing Braxton's superstar status. The album's first single, "You're Makin' Me High", marked Braxton's first number-one hit on the US Billboard Hot 100, while follow-up "Un-Break My Heart", a ballad written and composed by Diane Warren, became the biggest hit of Braxton's career yet. It spent eleven consecutive weeks at number one on the Hot 100 and enjoyed worldwide top five success. As a result, Braxton topped several of Billboard's year-end charts, and won two Grammy Awards; one for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "Un-Break My Heart" and Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "You're Makin' Me High" as well as two American Music Awards for Favorite Female Soul/R&B Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B Album. Still waiting on her financial rewards, Braxton eventually launched an unsuccessful lawsuit against Arista and LaFace Records. Soon after, she filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy. Public reaction to these events were very harsh, having been expressed most clearly in an interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

[sapphiclinos]

also if u want earwormy trot song recs may i suggest 정든 사람아 and 흥아리랑 they both fuck. also 맏내딸 is slay. also 쏜 살 is a great ballad. nearly forgot 하늬바람 what a banger.

guys never listen to 님과 함께 by nam jin itll get stuck in ur head forever

[callaei-researches]

Summary of results - Intercultural and cross-linguistic perspectives on the whump genre

Here is a summary of the results from the research thesis, "Intercultural and cross-linguistic perspectives on the whump genre"! This was part of my studying a Master of Contemporary International Studies. The research aimed to explore how whump-interested people connect with the whump genre cross-culturally and cross-linguistically.

Back in June/July this year (2023), I sent out a questionnaire open to any whump-interested person, and also invited interviews for bilingual whump-interested people. I've finally finished my thesis, and overall was awarded an A- for it!

The full thesis is available now to read on Academia.edu, and will also be available on IPU New Zealand's library website in January 2024.

This research was approved for Human Research Ethics Clearance by the IPU New Zealand Research and Development Commitee on 3rd May 2023 (HREC-2023-05-03-01).

----

(NB: Due to there being an extensive amount of results, I've only summarised the key findings of the results section and a brief conclusion here. I've referenced page numbers for the full thesis if you'd like to read the extended version.)

-----

Summary of results (Questionnaire)

233 respondents | 92 different cultural/faith-based identities

The questionnaire was used to answer Research Question 1, "How do the aspects of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and Schwartz’ universal human values reflect in the characteristics of whump genre identity?"

The questionnaire explored four themes associated with whump genre concepts - “agency,” “comfort,” “stoicism,” and “knowledge” - and found (p. 87):

For the theme of “agency,” questionnaire participants tended to perceive a greater importance for agency for the caretaker and whumper roles. This may be related to the caretaker and whumper role characters’ abilities to carry out their roles of caretaking and whumping respectively. While the cultural dimensions did not appear to be factors inherent to the theme of agency for the whumpee role in a whump genre story, this appeared to work towards supporting the cross-cultural enjoyment of whump. For the theme of “comfort,” hurt comfort, physical comfort and long-term recovery may be more accommodating of cultural dimension dynamics and have a greater capacity to fully realise the goals of Schwartz’ values. For the theme of “stoicism,” the way in which these dimensions can so diversely be applied to this theme suggests a cross-culturally applicable ground. For the theme of “knowledge,” the balance between the certainty of a known whumpee and the uncertainty of an unknown whumper indicate variable tolerance of ambiguity within the whump genre. This suggests a cross-culturally applicable ground.

Summary of results (Interview)

The full results section for the questionnaire can be read in the full thesis (pp. 61-87).

-----

31 interviewees (15 spoken, 16 written) | 24 different languages

The interview was used to answer Research Question 2, "How do bilingual whump-interested people perceive the ability to convey themes of hurt comfort (a subgenre of whump) in different languages?"

The interview questions were categorised into themes:

Theme 1: Preferences for language when interacting with fiction

Theme 2: Comparisons of different languages’ abilities to convey physical and emotional pain

Theme 3: Limitations or difficulties experienced when conveying whump in, and across, different languages

Theme 4: Cultural, social, and/or linguistic reasons influencing pronunciation of “whump”

Following transcription of the interviews, a thematic analysis involving examining code co-occurences found (p. 123):

For “Theme 1: Preferences for language when interacting with fiction,” preferences tended to be associated with the availability of media, the ability to connect with the author’s intended meaning, and the level of ease and comfort with which interviewees could engage with the fictional media. For “Theme 2: Comparisons of different languages’ abilities to convey physical and emotional pain,” interviewees’ comparisons highlighted differing ways of presenting and conveying pain in language, for example, through language features and words. Overall, interviewees felt that the languages which they were fluent in were generally equally capable of conveying physical and emotional pain, although different languages tended to approach the communicating of pain in different ways. For “Theme 3: Limitations or difficulties experienced when conveying whump in, and across, different languages,” the perceived limitations and difficulties experienced across languages tended to be associated with difficulties in conveying semantic, pragmatic and cultural meaning across languages, and tended to stem from the differences between sociolinguistic approaches to communicating ideas in languages. For “Theme 4: Cultural, social, and/or linguistic reasons influencing pronunciation of “whump,” common cultural, social and linguistic reasons for interviewees’ pronunciations of “whump” included how interviewees expected the word to sound based on their expectations of the letters in the phonological environment, the impact of a lack of having heard the word spoken aloud, sociocultural influences, intuition and language education.

Conclusions (brief exerpt from p. 130)

The full results section for the interview can be read in the full thesis (pp. 61-87). Interview transcripts (sensitive details filtered out) can be read in Appendix H (pp. 177-399).

-----

Research Question 1 explored cross-culturally applicable aspects of the whump genre. The findings suggested that themes of the whump genre accommodate variations in cultural social orientations and values, thereby enabling an interculturally common ground among whump-interested people.

Using qualitative research (interview), Research Question 2 explored how bilingual whump-interested people perceive and connect with hurt comfort themes across different languages. The findings suggest that multiple factors contribute to how bilingual whump-interested people engage with the whump genre, including but not limited to first and second languages as a tool to experience closely or otherwise distance the subject with, the availability of whump media in different languages, and manner of conveying aspects of pain and comfort through lexical, phonetic, grammatical and cultural aspects of language.

----

Thank you to everyone who participated in the research - the questionnaire and/or the interview! Your voices are all important in this kind of research, and are all very much appreciated!

[mudwerks]

(via Dabney Coleman, Actor Audiences Loved to Hate, Is Dead at 92 - The New York Times)

Mr. Coleman with his co-star Geena Davis in a scene from the 1983-84 NBC sitcom “Buffalo Bill.”

Dabney Coleman, an award-winning television and movie actor best known for his over-the-top portrayals of garrulous, egomaniacal characters, died on Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 92.

[ofmdrecaps]

08/22-23/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; David Jenkins; Rhys Darby; Taika Waititi; David Fane; Samba Schutte; Madeleine Sami; Kristian Nairn; Alex Sherman; Bronson Pinchot; Damien Gerard; Vico Ortiz; Reminders to Vote; Adopt Our Crew: GalaxyCon San Jose Videos; Call to Action Aug 30th; Fan Spotlight: Citizen Dame Podcast; Truly Docked Event in Tx Reminder; Love Notes; Daily Darby/Today's Taika;

== David Jenkins ==

David has been sharing more beautiful artwork by our crew. This time is the brilliant @thozaarmitage <3, and he's right, just SO GOOD.

Source: David Jenkins Twitter

== Rhys Darby ==

First up, some words of wisdom on how to success in life from Rhys' Tiktok!

Next up: Rhys' (And Minnie's!) movie Uproar won Best Oceania Film 2024 at the Septimius Awards!

Last but not least, it looks like Rhys has a new project coming up-- check out the article here!

Source: Variety Article

== Taika Waititi ==

Some "August b&w Shots" from a friend of Taika

Source: Christabel Rose Instagram

Previews of the season finale of Time Bandits!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Apple TV (@appletv)

And a short video by Rita.

Source: Rita Ora's Tiktok

== David Fane ==

David out with a John Asi!

Source: John Asi's Instagram Stories

== Samba Schutte ==

Samba's sharing more info regarding the upcoming Advanced Chemistry Theatre Screenings! You can buy tickets here!

📍 Arlington Capitol Theater 🗺️ Arlington, MA 🗓️ Date: 9/3 💬 Q&A 📍 Village East 🗺️ NYC 🗓️ Date: 9/4 💬 Q&A 📍 The Screening Room at 1313 🗺️ Wilmington, DE 🗓️ Date: 9/6 🕒 Time: TBD 📍 Lark 🗺️ Larkspur, CA 🗓️ Date: 9/7 💬 Q&A 📍 Harkins 101 via Phoenix Film Festival 🗺️ Scottsdale, AZ 🗓️ Date: 9/9 📍 The Ashland 🗺️ Ashland, OH 🗓️ Date: 9/10 🕒 Time: 4:30 PM 📍 More Info 📍 Laemmle Monica 🗺️ Santa Monica, CA 🗓️ Date: 9/12 🕒 Time: 7:30 PM 📍 Rodeo Cinema 🗺️ Oklahoma, OK 🗓️ Date: 9/18 📍 Gateway Film Center 🗺️ Columbus, OH 🗓️ Date: 9/18 🕒 Time: 7:30 PM 📍 Cinestudio 🗺️ Hartford, CT 🗓️ Date: 9/21 🕒 Time: 7:00 PM 💬 Q&A 📍 Esquire 🗺️ Cincinnati, OH 🗓️ Date: 9/22 🕒 Time: Matinee

Source: Samba Schutte's Instagram Stories / Good Deed Entertainments Instagram

== Madeleine Sami ==

Madeleine's been promoting Season 2 of Double parked! There's some shots of her and her costar as well as a new trailer! Check them out below!

Source: Madeleine Sami's Instagram

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Madeleine Sami (@madeleinesami)

== Kristian Nairn ==

Kristian is going to be in New York City on September 24th at The 92nd Street Y for an exclusive In Conversation & Signing! You can visit 92 NY.org to get tickets!

Source: Kristian Nairn's Instagram

Also~~ Kristian wrote a thank you note for @smudgeandfrank who recently saw him and the rest of the cast at GalaxyCon Raleigh! If you HAVENT seen their work, please check out their instagram!

Source: Kristian Nairn's Instagram

== Alex Sherman ==

Alex has been poking his head out lately which we love to see!!

Source: Alex Sherman's Twitter

== Bronson Pinchot ==

More Ned Low Musings from Bronson as well as his other characters! (PS: Sorry Tumblr DOES NOT want to share this video for some reason? 1. You can visit it here on Instagram 2. More Ned Low)

Source: Bronson Pinchot Instagram

== Damien Gerard ==

Damien out at a secret studio in their Green Room! Looking forward to see what you're up to sir!

Source: Damien Gerard's Instagram

== Vico Ortiz ==

Vico's got more OFMD BTS up on Patreon!

Source: Vico's Patreon

== Reminders To Vote ==

Thank you @adoptourcrew for the reminders!

Source: Adopt Our Crew's Twitter

== Adopt Our Crew ==

One of the awesome things our friends over at @adoptourcrew have been up to lately is going to cons! They had some fun questions to ask our lovely cast and crew!

=Vico Ortiz=

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Adopt Our Crew (@adoptourcrew)

= Kristian Nairn =

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Adopt Our Crew (@adoptourcrew)

= Call To Action =

@adoptourcrew is asking for your help on August 30th to get OFMD trending again!

Source: Adopt Our Crew's Instagram

== Fan Spotlight ==

= Citizen Dame Podcast =

There's another episode of Patreon exclusive OFMD Weekly series up! This week is The Art of Fuckery. It's just as fun as it sounds, if you're a patron feel free to check it out! If not, and you're interested, you can become a patron on their Patreon!

Source: Citizen Dame Patreon

= Truly Docked Sept 21-22, 2024 =

We're just a month away from the Truly Docked event in Galveston TX, and events have been announced! You can still purchase tickets here!

Source: Truly Docked Instagram

== Love Notes ==

Hey there lovelies! It's the weekend for a bunch of you! Huzzah! Hopefully this week wasn't too crazy for you and you're getting a chance to take a load off! Tonight I really just wanted to say thank you for all your kindness. Seriously. You all remind me every day that the world isn't a dreary place, but one filled with wonder, light, and good-intentioned people. Whether you're sending @ofmdlovelyletters to crewmates, or sharing artwork/fics, or making beautiful gifs, or sharing stills, sending a quick dm to check in on folks, or a comment with something kind, you are making the world so much more manageable. Sometimes when I'm having a bad day at work, even if I don't have time to interact much, I just come on and scroll through tumblr and see all of the things you all are up to, and I can feel the warmth radiating from all the wonderful things you're doing.

I can feel the love, even when it's not directed at me, that's how much love there is out there. It's like coming home to a warm fire and a soft rug to lay on and a blanket, and a cup of hot tea to warm the soul. You all make so many tiny waves each day, and those waves come back and go on to make other waves, and there's nothing more wonderful than someone being kind when they could have been harsh. You make the world a better place. You make this world worth living in, and fighting for, and full of hope.

So yeah.. I just wanted to say thank you lovelies, you truly have helped so many people through so many things you'll never ever be able to comprehend, and you do it with love. Thank you for being kind, and loving, and you <3 PS: This made me think of you all, thank you for being that reason for me and so many others <3

Source: FullSpiritQuotes Instagram

== Daily Darby / Today's Taika ==

Tonight's theme is disaster! Gifs courtesy of the magnificent @thunderwingdoomslayer and @celluloidbroomcloset!

[bengiyo]

BL 2023 Review

I wasn’t sure how I wanted to write about BL for this year. I was originally going to do a The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly framework for it, but that feels meaner than I actually am about it. Instead, I think I’ll just write out some sections and unpack some things I felt along the way.

I Watched Too Much Again

Last year I engaged with about 92 productions around the world. This year it was 99 (I tracked stuff I completed here). Sure I dropped 18 of them this year, but goddamn. The problem with watching as much as I did this year is that I worked full time this year and also maintained a separate hobby. I also continued my twice-weekly watch sessions with my friend Emily, so there are an additional 100-ish watch sessions in here of rewatching, plus a few other rewatches (Theory of Love and My Ride most notably).

One of my struggles at this point is I’m far too familiar with the genre, and find myself feeling impatient and irritable with shows that aren’t to my taste the way I used to. Throughout the late summer and fall I found myself increasingly grumpier about the genre, and it didn’t get better until I had a holiday and basically slept a day to get some energy back. I also found myself growing apart from fans I’ve known and followed a long time. It’s been a difficult year for me as a long-time fan because my tastes, habits, and friendships in the genre have changed even if the amount I watch hasn’t really.

I Wrote a Lot This Year

I recently converted my watch tag away from my gaming internet persona to just my shortname, so all near-1000 of my Stray Thoughts posts can be found under #ben watches now. I’ve also been going back and adding #ben writes to some of the standalone pieces that I really liked. In reviewing them, the pieces I’m happiest about are my ode to Framboise from Kabe Koji Nekoyashiki-kun Desires to Be Recognized, my post begging everyone to watch La Pluie, my post about what it means to actually like queer men, my SBS ep 10 post that ended up being wrong, my post about the Lavender Scare and Be My Favorite, my Tokyo in April is… post about the breaking of the BL line,

However, the two posts I am most proud of is my half-joking response about why I think tagging each other back and forth across Tumblr in our writing is so important. and The Knowing: Being Queer in BL because I had so much great conversations with folks as a result of both of these posts.

Looking back at my own blog, this is probably the most active I’ve been in my entire time on this website, so thank you to everyone who interacted with me this year, because it really is people talking to me that gets me most inspired to write things down. Big shout out to @lurkingshan who will bug me repeatedly until I blog something that I said in passing.

We Started a Podcast!

After hanging out with @shortpplfedup since Bad Buddy, she got inspired and really wanted to bring something different to the BL podcasting sphere. I had time, and liked talking with her enough, so we started @the-conversation-pod. Now we’re a full year into it and planning out future stuff. It’s been so much fun being able to get things off my soul and break poor NiNi in our recording sessions.

From this year, I think my favorite episodes we did were The Moonlight Chicken Episode, the Eighth Sense episode, the ITSAY Anniversary Episodes,  The Wedding Plan episode, , and The Holiday Clip Show. Huge shout out to @ginnymoonbeam for anchoring the transcription process, and @lurkingshan for editing.

The VIIB Awards will begin airing soontm so look forward to that.

Favorite New Term: Business Gay Performance

Let’s be clear, Bump Up Business is not good. It is an obvious BL cash grab from OnlyOneOf that seeks to comment on the fake nature of BL while doing everything it can to trick the audience into believing that the BL pair is real.

Before we got deeper into this year, I was a big fan of a certain pairing, and then their fans took it too far and it affected the way I engaged with their performances and their work. I like that we have a new term for “fanservice” that communicates that you understand that this is for work. (thanks to NiNi for this comparison) I can look at the latest behind the scenes video from Last Twilight and say that I think Sea really understands the work they’re doing, and he and Jimmy have a very relaxed and mature version of BGP without feeling like I’m feeding into shipping.

Do I think they’re dating? No. Do I like the way they fake it? Absolutely!

I can look at one of @respectthepetty posts about Yin and War having personalized, color-coded mics, and we can talk about the next level BGP between the two and both communicate that we know that this is a performance.

It actually makes the extra PR work fun for me again, because now I can just shout “BGP! BGP! BGP!” and it not feel like I’m giving myself brainrot.

Thai BL Needs to Finish Stronger Next Year

Let’s get into some of the show stuff. This year was defined for me by Thai BL starting strong with good premises and then squandering them by not focusing on the details that mattered or leaning into baseless melodrama. Time for some reads. Some of these shows were generally good, but they failed at these things:

609 Bedtime Story: The world building crumpled in the back half and both endings are flat.

A Boss and a Babe: Cher is a pro gamer who worked for a gaming company and there was no plot point about this at all, or collaboration between the two groups.

Bake Me Please: Why was a show about cake so lacking in flavor?

Be Mine SuperStar: You had a real opportunity to explore a fan and idol romance and had Punn show so little growth. I hope the footage of First’s range is helpful now that Ja is out of BL.

Be My Favorite: You redid that whole amusement park date and muddled so much of what the hell happened on that day.

Between Us: You had years to make this interesting. Why are there five pairs and why is the end of this a JC Penny catalog photoshoot?

Dangerous Romance: What the fuck happened to the Sailom we had in episode 1 and 2 before that gun incident?

Hidden Agenda: Tee, what the hell was this? Twelve weeks of this?

I Feel You Linger in the Air: You may be the most beautiful show, with some of the most impressive performances of the year, but you absolutely botched this ending. Finish the goddamn season next time.

Love in Translation: I love you, but that whole kidnapping plot was so stupid at the end.

Low Frequency: I like your OST. That's about it.

My Dear Gangster Oppa: No examination about how gaming friendships become close quickly because of the combination of anonymity and teamwork (shout out to @twig-tea for this excellent summation).

My School President: Saving your gay commentary for the final episode felt like a conservative choice. I want more from you next time.

Naughty Babe: You retconned your own characters to tell a worse story. Unforgiveable.

Never Let Me Go: You didn’t know if you wanted to be a high school BL or a mafia story. It was difficult to watch.

Only Friends: I cannot believe you did Boston like that at the end. Either give Force’s character a clear personality next time, or keep him enigmatic; half measures make him and Book look worse. Sand was absolutely embarrassing. Boeing was a waste. Ending on all of them paired like that felt so unearned.

Step By Step: You forgot to ground Jeng’s external dreams at the end, so the final two episodes are just frustrating.

I’m glad I got that off my chest. We can go into the next year now.

Korea Put in the Work This Year

I really like the efforts from the various Korean studios this year. I really hope we get a Strongberry joint next year, but I want to acknowledge that we had 18 Korean BL dramas I watched this year, and at least three of them I think are must watches: Our Dating Sim, Sing My Crush, and The Eighth Sense. Beyond that, I think Love Tractor, Unintentional Love Story, and A Breeze of Love are easy recommendations.

It’s really impressive how the complaint for me this year with Korean BL is not about them using their time poorly. It’s more about normal drama concerns, where I think characterization is a little weak, or a theme doesn’t land squarely. This rapid iteration from the Korean studios is really impressive to watch, and I’m excited to see what some of the recognized players do next year.

Taiwan and The Philippines Have Been Quiet for Me

I wasn’t really able to connect with much from the Philippines this year except for The Day I Loved You. I never wrote about The Day I Loved You, but this beautiful and heart wrenching show is one of my favorites from this year. I wasn’t too keen on the Oxin Films offerings of this year, and I’m still chasing down the ones from The IdeaFirst Company.

As for Taiwan, this new BL project from the end of the year just isn’t hitting. Kiseki: Dear to Me also ended up really hurting me with the way they used Wayne Song and Huang Chun Chih. I love that angry little man with the white hair, but I’m still salty about Wayne and the general mess of that show.

Japan was Busy This Year

I watched 16 new shows, a few older ones, and a few movies this year from Japan. We haven’t gotten this much from them ever. I continue to love the Drama Shower project from MBS, and my beloved What Did You Eat Yesterday? returned this year. We had pretty stellar outings with Our Dining Table, If It’s With You, and I Cannot Reach You.

I think a third of the Japanese BL I’ve tracked on MDL actually released this year. That’s huge.

Still, I am going to side eye Minato’s Laundromat 2. You were the show that let me down the most this entire year. More than Only Friends, more than Step By Step, and even more than Kiseki. You absolutely blew it. You were telling a great story about a man with an acute case of internalized homophobia coming out of his shell and learning to love his younger partner and you blew it for stupid amnesia nonsense. I will never forgive you for this.

Where Were All the Uncles This Year?

Really, without Jim from Moonlight Chicken, and without the men from What Did You Eat Yesterday? we had an alarming dearth of older gay characters passing on knowledge and wisdom to the youngsters this year. What the hell happened?

Rare Dynamics Won: Second Chance Romance and Friends to Lovers!

We had so much second chance romance this year. It’s really my favorite version of gay romance because gays don’t always have ideal settings when they’re young. We had Our Dating Sim, Individual Circumstances, Jun & Jun, The End of the World With You, Tokyo in April is…, Be My Favorite, Love Class Season 2, and A Breeze of Love. I am satisfied.

Friends to Lovers is actually so rare in romance and we have so many to choose from this year! The best examples are I Cannot Reach You and Sing My Crush, but we also have one of the pairs in Love Class Season 2.

Gay Thoughts

I had a couple of ongoing thoughts this year about queerness in BL.

First, I want to return to my post about Sing My Crush and La Pluie, and how I assert that Men Need to Be Angry Sometimes. More than giving men grace to be righteously angry or upset about things, along with letting them express it in ugly ways, I really want to get into how we engage with these shows. I will stop engaging with moralistic reads on characters in 2024. I will no longer engage with asks, reblogs, or meta gripping the fandom where we're judging the moral fiber of the character.

The question that really only matters for me at this point is: Is this act from the character justified from their characterization, the narrative, or genre conventions; and is it interesting? Whether or not the character is good or bad reeks of the lame arguments about good and bad representation, and I am not watching BL like I’m being graded in Sunday school.

The second thing I really want to acknowledge at the end of the year is that the gay sex is finally getting better again. I watched The Novelist this year, and we have taken so long to get back to the space that show took us on the portrayal of male-male intimacy. We are in the genre about people with dicks. It should feel like it. There should be a masculine component there that feels specific to queer intimacy.

I will acknowledge 2 Cutie 2 Pie, A Boss and a Babe, Be Mine SuperStar, Bed Friend, Candy Color Paradox, For Him, I Cannot Reach You, Kiseki: Dear to Me, La Pluie, Love Class 2, Love in Translation, Love Mate, Middleman’s Love, Naughty Babe, Only Friends, The End of the World With You, Tokyo in April is…, and Wedding Plan for your contributions.

Final Thoughts

I like how broad the genre felt this year, and I enjoyed how much speculative fiction is entering into the conversation. I don’t know how I feel about there being five vampire stories in the works next year, but overall I’m glad that we’re getting more experimental concepts. I’m burnt out on the college engineering BL, and would like to see more shows about working adults.

Despite how grumpy I was for at least three months, I think this has genuinely been one of the best years we’ve ever had in the genre. I made a lot of new friends in BL this year, and I’m excited to see what comes next. Thank you all for spending some of your time with me this year and I’ll see you in the next one.

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army 2003

"Seven Nation Army" is a song by American rock duo the White Stripes, released as the lead single from their fourth studio album, Elephant (2003). Written and produced by Jack White, the song consists of distorted vocals, a simple drumbeat, and a bass line created by playing a guitar through a pitch shift effect. "Seven Nation Army" has become a sports anthem, commonly appearing in audience chants. It has also served as a theme song for sports teams, personalities, and events, including the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

The song charted in multiple countries, and its success contributed to the popularity of the White Stripes and the garage rock revival movement. It received widespread critical acclaim, with praise being given to its distinctive riff and drumbeat; various critics and magazines have since listed "Seven Nation Army" as one of the best songs of all time. It won Best Rock Song at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards in addition to being nominated for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.. The music video won Best Editing in a Video at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, as well as being nominated for Best Group Video, Best Rock Video, and Best Special Effects.

"Seven Nation Army" received a total of 92% yes votes!

[mitigatedchaos]

The Floating Causation of Vulgar Anti-Racism

Post for August 12, 2024 ~7,400 words, 36 minutes

-★-

The late 20th century and the early 21st century were an excellent time for 'catch-up' development in under-developed countries. For example, the GDP per capita of the People's Republic of China rose from $312 in 1980, to $12,720 in 2022, more than a 40x increase. This is despite the People's Republic being nominally communist, 92% Han Chinese, and one of the largest potential geopolitical rivals to the United States. This is not a one-off – exports from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to the United States rose from $50 million in 1994 to $114 billion in 2023.

While the ideologically liberal government of the United States did invade Iraq and Afghanistan, and placed strict limits on Iran, in practical terms, the United States was willing to direct hundreds of billions of dollars of demand, for everything from disposable gloves to rice cookers, to countries that were neither majority white nor, officially, capitalist, which allowed these countries to build up their industrial base.

Inside the United States, as of the early 2020s, Americans of Indian descent, Americans of Asian descent, and a number of other non-white groups are outperforming the median household income of white Americans. It's not uncommon to see an Indian-American as the CEO of a major US corporation, such as Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Google's Sundar Pichai, or IBM's Arvind Krishna. And while Americans of Nigerian descent aren't earning quite as much money as Sundar Pichai, they are doing better than the U.S. national average. [1]

The American economy is willing to award non-white Americans and non-white immigrants with average pay higher than that the average pay for white Americans, and American society is willing to award members of these same groups with highly prestigious positions – Google is one of the most famous American companies, and to be its CEO is highly prestigious indeed.

Why is it that vulgar anti-racists aren't content to leave well enough alone on negative racial messaging, and take advantage of this opportunity to focus on personal development, ingroup development, and national development? Why is it that they have a strange totalitarian bent, such as Ibram Kendi proposing to give veto power over all government policy to a body of unappointed race experts, which would de facto end democracy?

Last month, @max1461 wrote a post, attempting to find a balanced compromise between the social justice movement and its critics in the discourses on racism over the past 10 years. Perhaps this was intended to close the books and allow the participants to move to a saner footing going forward. Subsequently, Max flagged the post as unrebloggable in order to prevent it from being beat up like a piñata. Near the end of the initial chain, Max wrote:

I can’t stress enough that, for all the excesses of DEI seminars and modern anti-racist academia and whatnot, for however unhelpful or even regressive these things may often be, what they exist in response to is fundamentally a horror of an entirely different and incomparable scale; something unspeakably evil and destructive. And, after 200 years of such an evil world order, which only really began to melt in 1945, I think it would be incredibly naive to believe that all the wounds are now healed.

It would seem that for the most part, the wounds that Japan suffered from America in World War II have already healed. The country already went through reindustrialization, followed by a boom period (which startled Westerners), and then a subsequent crash and the 'lost decade' of the 1990s. The Japanese have a favorable view of the United States, as perhaps they should – Japan has prospered in the Post-WW2 international order, in which they can simply purchase whatever materials they need on global markets with no need to invade or occupy anyone.

Yet for others, the past lingers on.

Ibram Kendi is one of the most famous contemporary self-identified anti-racists, a New York Times bestselling author (his most famous book was titled "How to Be an Anti-Racist") who was not only platformed by major corporations such as Microsoft (in 2020, an advertisement on the login screen of Windows 10 computers linked to a search for "anti-racism books," with his at the top), but even received funding for his own anti-racism center (now under attack for its ineffectiveness).

At one time, Ibram Kendi thought that white people were aliens. A roommate talked him out of it, asking how it was that white people could have children with everyone else if that were the case. To his credit, Kendi did change his mind.

...but how could anyone have come up with Kendi's conclusion in the first place?

In school in the United States, children are taught that the Spanish conquered the Aztecs. It is true that Spanish military forces brought about the downfall of the Aztec Empire, but often people forget the details of what they learned in school, and often what they learn in school is itself a simplified story, designed to be told to children. Encyclopedia Britannica's summary of the Battle of Tenochtitlan largely agrees with the gist of Wikipedia's more detailed article on the Fall of Tenochtitlan, which is littered with instances of "[citation needed]."

Wikipedia, however, provides more numbers. In particular, Wikipedia's version provides one of the Internet's favorite parts of wiki battle articles, a listing of the balance of opposed forces (with citations):

There is a racist narrative of the conquest of the Americas in which the brave Spanish explorers overcame the savage, human-sacrificing hordes of the Aztecs. There is an inverted, anti-racist narrative of the conquest of the Americas in which the powerful, cruel Spanish showed up to oppress the weak, innocent Aztecs.

And then there is a third narrative - a narrative that politics happened. A number of tributary states had grievances with the Aztecs, and the small number of Spanish probably didn't seem like enough to conquer the whole territory from the perspective of the tributaries, but did seem powerful enough to rally around to fight the Aztecs and win.

Nobody comes out looking good in this third narrative. The Spanish brought about a brutal war with tens of thousands of casualties, and devastating disease followed their arrival. The Aztecs and tributaries combined failed to overcome a foreign invasion due to (relative to the foreigners being from another continent) local infighting. The Aztecs were awful enough that a number of tributaries sided with an army of foreigners against them.

Now, suppose that we delete the 200,000 native allies from the balance of forces above, but still record a victory for the Spanish. The effect of the native allies remains, but the cause of that effect disappears. This creates an effect without a cause – unattributed causation, which is disconnected from what came before, or what we might call, "floating causation."

Some might call overcoming a force of 80,000 with only 1,000 or so men a miracle. For those not so inclined, the 'floating' causation gets attributed to the Spanish soldiers – their equipment, their valor, their tactics, and their discipline. Each of a thousand Spanish infantrymen is now somehow worth 200 native warriors.

In this cartoon version of history, the Spanish are an unstoppable psychic warrior race. Their steadfast will in the face of danger and their unit cohesion are quite nearly inhuman, and their technological advantage is overwhelming. The natives have not merely made a political miscalculation similar to others of the pre-modern era, such as the decisions of states facing Genghis Khan, but are buffoons to the slaughter, incapable of putting up any real defense.

In this cartoon, the Spanish can go anywhere. They can do anything. And because of this, they are the only people with agency in the whole world.

They sound... like aliens.

Trying to rebalance this cartoon only leads to greater absurdities, such as the idea that only Europeans ever meaningfully engaged in conquest (contradicted by Genghis Khan), or that industrial technology and its resulting pollution are "European" in nature (China has been quite aggressive about industrializing), or that only "European" countries waged modern and industrialized wars of conquest (the Empire of Japan used guns, bombs, and tanks as part of its project to create the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere).

All three of the above counter-examples are from Asia, which is usually conspicuously absent from self-identified anti-racist thinking, but none of them are obscure.

-★-

It is my belief that floating causation is a source of distortions across the ideological spectrum.

Ideology is not independent from human beings. Manifestos, one might say, do not print themselves. From the other direction, it is not a piece of paper which murders somebody – it is a human being who pulls the trigger.

There is ideology, which is a system of related rules and beliefs, and there are adherents who adopt ideology, spread beliefs, and put ideological rules into practice.

An ideology can contain taboos which prohibit noticing or explaining the true cause of some outcome, separating the cause from its effect. Practitioners can then attribute that effect to a preferred ideological construct instead, making it seem much more powerful, and often dangerous, than it really is.

The Elephants

Imagine (as this example is entirely made-up) that there is some village in which elephants are considered sacred, but the elephants in the area have a habit of trampling crops in the night. To avoid loss of face, the damage to crops is attributed to "bandits" by an initial group of elders. The young children who do not know better are then taught this explanation. Later, after the death of the elders, the initial truth is lost. Anyone claiming to have seen elephants trampling the fields is denounced as choosing the vile bandits over the virtuous elephants. An outsider who did not realize what was happening might be quite impressed to hear that a bandit in the region ruined a dozen fields in a single night, and assume that the bandit has tremendous physical stamina.

But floating causation is not necessarily the result of an ideological taboo. Someone may be ignorant about the cause of an effect, unable to understand the process by which an effect came about, have powerful emotions about the topic which they are unwilling to confront or may not even be aware of, or may simply have poor judgment. An adherent may be drawn to an ideology for these reasons.

Continuing with our example, a fresh-off-the-boat colonial administrator arriving at the village might be unaware that elephants exist, or trample crops, and conclude that there were ongoing feuds driven by animosity among the villagers, with bandits as the cover-story. Alternatively, the new colonial administrator might love the elephants and hate the villagers, and be unwilling to consider the possibility that the elephants are trampling the crops, including cooking up rather elaborate rationalizations.

Ideology

Issues with not understanding a process are more likely to come up with things like economics – occasionally a worker will post a video to social media complaining that he is not paid the full value of the items he sells or creates, ignoring all the money that went into the construction of the facility, the work from other workers putting together the input materials, and so on.

Liberals in the late 00s and early 2010s had an interest in memetics, which concerns the replication and spread of ideas. (This field is where the term "Internet meme" comes from.) Then, as now, they had a tendency to treat people as too similar to each other, and some of them leaned towards the idea that any person could hold any ideology. Ideologies do (in my judgment) influence behavior – there are far fewer monarchists around these days, and far fewer monarchs with real power, for example – but how a set of beliefs is expressed depend on the emotions, motives, and temperament of the person who holds those beliefs.

So do people choose ideologies, or do ideologies choose people?

One way to view this matter is as a cycle. Someone's social environment is partly a matter of choice, and partly a matter of circumstance. The ideologies that show up in someone's environment are generally going to be ones that spread (as ideologies that don't attract new adherents will die out), but which ideology someone actually chooses and how they practice it will be influenced by what type of person they are.

Another way to view this matter is that emotions, motives, temperament, and beliefs are all things that make certain actions or thoughts either easier (and cheaper) or more difficult (and more expensive). A drug addict who believes in hard work and free market capitalism, but finds himself stealing to feed his habit, may find that the influence of his beliefs is not enough to overcome his addiction. (He is likely to feel miserable.) However, when a religious person is choosing what time of day, or day of the week, to worship, the explicit belief of their religion is likely to have a great deal of influence.

Yet another way to view this matter is to treat things like social relations, ideology, and temperament as interacting layers, and then propose that politics spans multiple layers.

Human Talent

I don't believe that all human beings are equally talented, and I don't believe that they all have identical temperaments. Therefore, one of my beliefs is what might be called the "human capital theory of movements." Ideologies consist of networks of related beliefs which can be used to interpret the world, to guide behavior, or to create arguments. But ideologies do not create beliefs or arguments themselves. Humans do.

When a movement has a lot of talented, virtuous people working for it, these people can create new arguments in order to win debates, and change parts of the ideology, the network of beliefs, to adapt the network to changes in conditions. Without talented people, the ideology of a movement will drift farther from environmental conditions, causing its responses to become more misaligned with conditions on the ground.

Talented people are also needed for the implementation of an ideology. An ideological book is just an inert text. No matter how complex it may be, it is fundamentally limited in its complexity. Applying that text in the environment, bridging the gap between what the text says and what that means in the reality of a specific situation, requires both intelligence and good judgment. Not every person is equally talented, and not every person is equally informed. If someone more talented and with better judgment is around, they can read the situation and come up with some simpler rules or orders for others to follow.

The less talented the adherents of a movement are, the lower the ability of the movement to adapt to conditions over both the short-term and the long-term.

A shift in the distribution of talent can precede other forms of political change. Ideologues may smile as the most disagreeable members are driven out of their movement, but at the same time, the lack of criticism will reduce the movement's ability to respond to change.

There are trade-offs. The use of floating causation may make an ideology less aligned with reality, but it may also be useful for the movement to stoke the emotions of their followers in order to drive action. (This emotional motivation bit is why every election in the United States is "the most important in your lifetime.")

-★-

Beliefs are not intelligence. Nonetheless, a person with a belief may act as though they are smarter (or even wiser) than they actually are. This is just the nature of knowledge (as cached intelligence, wisdom, and observation).

I developed the talent theory in the prior section by observing opposition to racism in the United States prior to 2014. In the United States between 2000 and 2014, there was substantial support for individualist "colorblindness," while at the same time, there was immense social pressure against overt white racial organizing.

Racial organizing takes time and effort. Because white Americans were not subject to racial discrimination, they could simply go out into the market and earn what their work was worth. For talented white Americans, the gains from white racial organizing would be marginal, so the penalties could easily overcome those gains. The less talented would have the most to gain due to the ability to reduce the amount of economic competition they would be up against, but they were also less able to organize. [2]

There was somewhere famous for white racial organizing in the US during this era: prisons.

Racial prison gangs have been particularly noted in the California prison system. Prison gangs offer inmates a credible threat of retaliation if the inmate is harmed, so every inmate has an incentive to join one, and the bigger the gang the better that threat of retaliation is, so every gang has an incentive to recruit. If you're a gang member and a new guy comes in and starts causing trouble, and you don't want to escalate (and thus risk extra charges for your guys or reduced privileges), what are you to do? You would prefer to negotiate with someone that has leverage on him. Race is very visible, even if inmates move around between prisons, so if all inmates get sorted into gangs by race, then someone is responsible for this guy, and by talking to the right people, you can make sure he knows it. (If the troublemaker still doesn't respond, and his own gang cut him loose, then you can punish him without fear of retaliation from other inmates.)

Different incentives produce different results.

Four Options

Glenn Loury is a black man, and an economist at Brown University. He views himself as an American and therefore an inheritor of human rights philosophy of the American founders and their English forebears. He has his own show on YouTube in which he regularly discusses matters with John McWhorter, another black man, who is a linguistics professor at Columbia University. (John strikes me as more liberal, and I heard that he was frightened of Donald Trump, a sentiment shared by many white American culturally liberal Democrats.) Both of these men are quite smart, and if you watch the show, you'll see them easily consider arguments from various perspectives and toss hypotheticals back and forth.

Neither of these men are vulgar anti-racists.

Roland Fryer is a black man, and is an economist at Harvard (although he was suspended for 2 years) who I have discussed previously. He thinks like an economist, and has conducted studies such as paying children to read books. In previous appearances, it seemed that he believes that education gaps can be closed through extremely rigorous selection of teachers and other methods.

Mr. Fryer does not appear to be a vulgar anti-racist.

These men are all relatively prominent voices. If you go looking for the sort of content they produce, they aren't that hard to find. And they're all smart. They might have disagreements with each other and with some of my readers, but smart people can disagree.

However, during the 2014-2022 era, when it was decided to push a black academic to prominence, political forces settled on Ibram Kendi instead. There must have been dozens of other candidates.

When I think about why that happened, I suspect that the answer is that while the first three men care about the interests of black Americans, all three of them are willing to say, "No." Although I doubt they would phrase it in exactly these terms, I suspect that all three understand human rights as rooted in high-order consequences, limits on information, and human bias.

If you proposed to John McWhorter that we should give veto power to a committee of unelected race experts, he would immediately recognize the problem with just that.

Why Vulgar Anti-Racism?

With all of that said, I believe we can think about vulgar anti-racism by means of comparison.

a. Economics

Loury and Fryer are both economists. They know about gains from trade, prices as a distributed form of economic planning, property rights as enabling investment, specialization of labor, economies of scale, and dozens of other things. They understand where wealth comes from.

The typical vulgar anti-racist that you will encounter on an Internet discussion board has little knowledge of economics, and tends to think of total production as fixed. From their perspective, if someone has more resources than another person, it has nothing to do with production, and is purely the result of hoarding.

The typical vulgar anti-racist also doesn't think in terms of entropy, the tendency of things to break down over time. They tend not to discount temporally-distant advantages. (If a well was built 400 years ago, they treat that advantage as retained today.) They tend to think of capital as fixed and not as something that is constantly being rebuilt and adjusted. They don't understand that the ability to create new capital is generally more important than the initial capital in the long-run.

Thinking about production is probably why we see Fryer focused on educational gains. His theory is likely that if the children have a good base of education, they'll be able to produce more, avoid losses, overcome entropy, and net accumulate wealth. If they don't have a good base of education, then they'll be less productive, and entropy will eat a higher percentage of their earnings, leading to reduced wealth.

If someone doesn't know economics, then the wealth of developed countries is "unexplained," and so are the motives of many people within developed countries.

b. History

I don't know about Fryer specifically, but Loury and McWhorter seem to have a good grasp of history.

A solid understanding of history leads to seeing actions as emerging from their historical contexts. This places a limit on the range of expected behavior.

For example, for most of history up until about the 1900s, the child mortality rate was about 50%. That example is relevant for feminism, as under such brutal conditions, we would expect any society that didn't push for women to have at least 4 children to die out. Gender-based oppression didn't occur for no reason, or because of pure male greed, but was influenced by material circumstances.

If we run this understanding backwards, it follows that 1700s or earlier gender norms would be unlikely to return without 1700s or earlier child mortality rates.

Likewise, some basic historical knowledge would reveal that wars of conquest have happened pretty much everywhere, so it's quite unlikely that Europeans are uniquely conquerors. You end up having to declare everything from feuding Chinese kingdoms, to the Māori, to chimpanzees, be "European" in order to fit the model.

The typical vulgar anti-racist's position is, implicitly, "Everyone lived together in peace and harmony, until one day, for no reason at all, the Europeans became possessed by the spirit of greed, and attacked."

If someone somehow doesn't know that war existed outside of Europe prior to 1492, then the wars of colonialism are "unexplained," and so are the motives of the people who fought them.

When vulgar anti-racists do research history, they generally focus on collecting racial grievances in order to build up a case that the group they favor are poor, oppressed, not responsible for anything bad their group has ever done, and are owed indefinite benefits for incalculable harms. They don't proceed from the idea of, "How does this work?" They don't, say, look at the tremendous economic success of South Korea, and ask, "Based on how South Korea obtained their wealth, how can our group achieve such riches?" (They don't even look at South Korea's birthrate and ask how they can avoid such a fate!)

Even before World War 2, Japan did look afar to ask how they could become rich. That kind of mentality is part of how they were able to become a developed country (who could threaten other people with tanks) in the first place.

Looking to Asia is useful for people making comparisons to figure out how things work, but is not useful for collecting racial grievances in order to build up racial claims to make demands. That's why vulgar anti-racists often don't know basic facts about Asian history, like that state testing to determine government positions was practiced in ancient China. [3]

c. Racial Attachment

Even during the individualist colorblindness of 2000-2014, there were still white Americans with some talent engaged in racial organizing. In general, these were people to whom race was very important, and thus who were out-of-step with the mainstream of white America.

It's my opinion that there is a natural range of tribalism among human beings. Sometimes, the rival tribe on the other side of the mountain just want to trade. Other times, they really are out to kill you. The trait doesn't disappear, because wars still happen, and even if they didn't happen, someone could just reinvent war and start it all back up again.

In my view, this tribalism trait isn't attached to race specifically. It can attach to religion. It can attach to sex. Some of the rhetoric from radical feminists sounds the same as rhetoric from hardcore ethnic nationalists – or at least it would, if we treated men as an ethnicity. In our modern environment in which race is highly legible due to intercontinental travel, for a lot of people, it gets attached to race.

Rather than assigning people a single number on a scale from "moral" to "immoral," it's probably better to think of people as having virtues and vices, strengths and weaknesses.

Some level of racial attachment itself is not inherently evil. Based on his research topics, for example, Roland Fryer seems interested in bringing about the success of people with a similar background to himself. His virtue (his interest in truth) and his strength (his intelligence) convert that attachment into something that's beneficial to society.

High levels of racial attachment fly much closer to the wire. A highly racially attached individual might do good work in other domains, but there's a risk that they'll end up routing too much of their sense of self-worth through their race, and become obsessed with guarding their race's self-perceived reputation. For such a person, any information deemed unflattering to the group may be interpreted as an attack on himself (or herself).

The Mayo Clinic (a network of hospitals in the United States) describes narcissism as:

Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence, they are not sure of their self-worth and are easily upset by the slightest criticism.

A number of users on Twitter (now known as X.com) began using the term "ethnic narcissism" to describe this sort of disordered thinking when done on behalf of a racial or ethnic group rather than oneself specifically.

2019 and 2020 were banner years for platforming this sort of behavior, with the nation's leading newspaper arguing, in its own words, that we should make the suffering of a particular racial group the core narrative of American history, that everyone should define their identities around:

The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.

Obsession with self-perceived ethnic reputation is part of what leads to the "rebalancing the cartoon" behavior I discussed earlier:

Trying to rebalance this cartoon only leads to greater absurdities, such as the idea that only Europeans ever meaningfully engaged in conquest (contradicted by Genghis Khan), or that industrial technology and its resulting pollution are "European" in nature (China has been quite aggressive about industrializing), or that only "European" countries waged modern and industrialized wars of conquest (the Empire of Japan used guns, bombs, and tanks as part of its project to create the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere).

How does someone end up so ignorant that they don't know that Genghis Khan existed? By being the kind of person that doesn't want to know that Genghis Khan existed. They don't look it up. If you tell them, they either forget or they take a conflict theorist approach and think that it's some sort of trick.

Unfortunately, while a fairly accurate description of the behavior at issue, the term "ethnic narcissism" can also be used as an attack by ethnic narcissists themselves, as well as people engaged in ethnic conflict. This makes it of limited utility in practice.

The Mysterious Anglo

Option #1: In general, the right wing would consider the vulgar anti-racists to be liars working to selfishly advance their own personal interests and those of their preferred groups. Left-wingers would tend to take a negative view of this, as they believe that right-wingers are unjustly dismissive in order to 'protect the unearned and unquestioned advantages of the privileged.'

In this version, vulgar anti-racists won't drop the issue and hit the GDP gym because they're bullies who think the particular groups they dislike are easy targets. The appropriate response is to become a harder target by systematically defunding any institution that supports them, putting them on the same footing as conventional racial supremacists in the US.

I tend to agree that many of the vulgar anti-racists are just being selfish. There is a question of just how consciously aware of it they are, however.

Option #2: A left-wing view would be that the vulgar anti-racists are "good people, just a bit misguided." Right-wingers tend to take a negative view of this, because if a right-winger published a book titled "Black Fragility" that was as circular in its reasoning as the "White Fragility" of Robin DiAngelo appeared to be, he would be hounded as a racist.

In this version, vulgar anti-racists just need patient guidance to put their empathy back on the right track.

I tend to believe that a good chunk of the vulgar anti-racists are just low-tier progressives who get their opinions socially. If the social consensus changes among progressives, they'll forget ever fretting about "microaggressions." Arguing with them individually mostly won't work, though, because it doesn't override their social consensus, and it won't make them think harder about the issues.

Many left-wingers would disagree with me on this assessment.

Option #3: A more centrist view would be that vulgar anti-racists are a mix of people with excessively high racial attachment, enthusiastic people who are underinformed, and people who serve their niche of the information and political economy, and that this isn't that different from the lower quality wings of other left and right political movements (look how bad "degrowth" is, for example), except that race feels much more core to people's identities (it's certainly not easy to change one's race), so it evokes more powerful emotions. A centrist would likely say that there are more academically and philosophically serious opponents of racism out there, but because the things they say are more serious, they're less controversial, so they get less coverage. ("You wouldn't expect a textbook in the Sunday paper.")

A person with this perspective would say that the appropriate course of action is mostly just to wait for it to blow over.

I would disagree. If vulgar anti-racism is taught in schools for a generation, it would create an expectation that racial blame is the default course of action. This would create a situation which is much more favorable for racial conflict, so it should be shut down now to prevent that from happening.

However, I feel that this does not adequately explain the totalitarian bent. What about other values society might have? What about trade-offs? [4] I would like to throw a fourth possibility into the ring.

Option #4: Life inside the vulgar anti-racist worldview is anxiety-inducing and subtly terrifying.

I don't fully endorse this view, because I think that vulgar anti-racism is a coalition of multiple groups (see the previous three options).

However, while I learned from school that racism and ethnic conflict are extremely dangerous in general (e.g. they can boil over and result in mass murder), the susceptibility of vulgar anti-racists to, "It's impossible to be racist to white people," which is very obviously racist, strongly implies that what they learned was, "Jews good; Germans bad" – basically just a list of which groups are acceptable, and which groups aren't. [5]

I reverse-engineered a sophisticated moral worldview, and when I was young, I assumed that everyone else had done so, too. And for a little while, society approximated that view closely enough for that misconception to kind-of work.

I think that a significant number of people in the vulgar anti-racist coalition don't understand white people.

In terms of anxiety, a number of them seem to think that Europeans and their descendants think about race as much as the vulgar anti-racists do – that they are silently passing judgment, or saying nasty things when others are not listening.

I've been around middle-class and above white Americans my entire life. I've seen some kids make stupid racist jokes, and I can imagine bullying targeting race if it looks like an axis of vulnerability, but in general, among themselves, they don't talk about race much at all.

A skeptic reading this may say that that's just anecdotal. However, according to surveys, "white conservatives" have about the same "racial/ethnic" "ingroup favorability" as either "hispanic moderates" or "asians." "White liberals" were the only group on the chart to have a "pro-outgroup bias."

If we interpret these ingroup favorability measures as racism (which is a stretch, because a favorability measure is not itself a discriminatory policy), then white conservatives have a "normal" (as in typical of most groups) amount of racism. White liberals (probably in the sense that the label "liberal" is used for the entire left in the US) are the only ones who loop around into what might be called "anti-racism." (Razib Khan has his doubts about the stability of this arrangement of anti-racism as opposed to non-racism.)

A vulgar anti-racist doesn't know this, and doesn't want to know this.

Now, for the "subtly terrifying" part. If someone accepts, for instance, that the British were sincere in sending warships to intercept slave traders, then there are all sorts of explanations that they can come up with for that behavior, such as it being a natural result of industrialization, or maybe a result of rising literacy, or motivated by Christianity in combination with previous political developments in England, and so on.

From Wikipedia, here's a map of the British Empire, a map of the Spanish Empire, and a map of the Portuguese Empire. While from the perspective of Europeans at the time, the European states were in competition with each other, if taken together as a group, they were closer to achieving true world conquest than anyone else in history. (Sure, the Mongol Empire was huge, but they didn't make it over to the Americas.)

If someone believes that the Europeans turned off the slave trade for some sincere or enduring reason, then the 1700s are unlikely to come back. If someone believes that the Europeans turned off the 1700s for no reason, or for a secret reason, then one day, they could just... turn the 1700s back on.

And maybe that thought isn't entirely conscious. Maybe it just sits quietly, at the back of the mind.

And they get stuck, much like people who are still focused on "overpopulation" as birthrates plummet in industrialized countries throughout the world.

-★-

Whether they consciously intend to or not, vulgar anti-racists leverage social taboos to make it difficult to argue for one group's innocence without making another, generally more vulnerable, group, look worse. People don't want to be mean and say mean things about a vulnerable group. Vulgar anti-racists exploit this. (This kind of behavior is immoral, but I'm not sure how much vulgar anti-racists consciously understand that.)

Online Tactics

I've developed tactics to argue with them in online space, but I haven't tried them out in in-person institutional spaces where they have institutional influence (power).

In general, you cannot argue with vulgar anti-racists grievance-for-grievance. Building up an ammunition depot of racial or ethnic grievances on behalf of "overperforming" groups won't work – vulgar anti-racists will dismiss you as irrationally motivated by racial hatred and dismiss your entire collection, and normal people will also think it's weird (even though they still don't think many racial or ethnic minorities collecting grievances is weird). [6]

A better approach is to pick one or two grievances to shut down the idea that the group you're defending are "invulnerable." Morally, you shouldn't have to point to, say, children or minors being mass victimized, because it should be obvious that people of any race can be victimized. But that's just the world we live in.

Collect examples of institutional policy, such as by governments, corporations, or universities, that is racially discriminatory against the group you're defending, in order to show that the intent of vulgar anti-racists is racial discrimination. Use center-left, mainstream sources to prevent dismissals. The goal is not to show major harms; most Democrats who are not social justice critical will initially attempt to deny that racial discrimination is a goal of vulgar anti-racism.

(If necessary, it can be emphasized that not wanting to be racially discriminated against is a normal thing to want.)

Vulgar anti-racists will try to shut you down by reciting their list of grievances. Memorizing racial grievances is something that they are strong at. Redirect the conversation to where they are weak: demand that they show whatever policy it is that they want will actually improve things and permanently close racial outcome gaps.

If you find someone who has memorized a list of successful academic or nutrition interventions, you've likely found a philosophical liberal. In my experience, almost no vulgar anti-racist has any even modestly-successful intervention memorized. If they propose an intervention, demand evidence that it will work.

It's possible that they could propose something scientific, but science is undergoing a replication crisis, and 'race scholars' have come under fire for scientific misconduct. If a vulgar anti-racist does come up with something, the next step is to get a binding commitment to close the racial claims against their target group.

If their political leaders will not agree, in writing, with binding mechanisms (and punishments with teeth if they don't follow through), to close out the racial claims against their target groups, conditional on some social intervention going into effect, then they don't believe that the intervention will work.

A working intervention is win-win. Outcomes improve, and the odds of conflict (over this particular issue) decrease.

IRL Tactics

X user CantonaCorona must live somewhere very different from me, because I never hear vulgar anti-racism from people in real life. His advice?

100%. I can’t even tell you the number of times I’ve been in a friendly/polite mutual friend gathering, and someone who knows 10% of the room will add “gawd, white people, gross” etc.

The issue is they are also the person lacking social skills to see the room gets uncomfortable

In 2023ish I started responding by asking them very honest seeming questions and leading them into saying really crazy stuff.

Takes a lot of finesse to not sound like a schizo, but if you can pretend to be genuinely curious it works wonders and someone else will call them out

It does, indeed, take a lot of finesse, even online. Because vulgar anti-racists are exploiting taboos, they have a huge terrain advantage in most encounters due to normal people not wanting to touch reputationally-damaging information. Successfully navigating the situation without sounding "schizo," and without sounding cruel, is difficult.

The advantage of the tactics discussed above are that you don't have to attack the reputation of the vulnerable group that vulgar anti-racists are using to justify their own bad behavior. It isn't surprising that, like a successful hostage rescue, it requires being more careful than the hostage-takers.

"Corrective" racial discrimination that does not permanently close racial outcome gaps is not actually a correction, it's just extra harm for no reason, and the motives of people who support it are suspect.

Demobilization

While the online tactics I've discussed above are reasonably effective for an online debate or argument format (and vulgar anti-racists are increasingly retreating to protected contexts where they don't have to engage in open debate), the long-term goal needs to be demobilization. Ethnic conflict interferes with stability and good government.

There are some supporters that don't recognize the logical errors in their positioning, but they can sense, "Wait, this guy isn't like the others," and flee rather than risk being split off from the social approval of their group.

I propose the fear theory for the potential to develop new angles. If the real motivation is fear, then addressing most of the intermediate arguments won't work, as the intermediate arguments are just products of the fear.

Reportedly, black musician Daryl Davis demobilized many Klansmen just by befriending them. [7] I suspect that most vulgar anti-racists already know a number of white people personally, so that tactic probably won't work here.

I have not conducted field experiments (either online or offline) on using the fear theory during encounters, so I can't provide solid information on its tactical use, yet.

-★★★-

[1] Stylistically, I have chosen to capitalize nationality while not capitalizing racial groups. On a quick reading, the tables provided by Wikipedia don't appear to disaggregate between first-generation immigrants, who have foreign nationality of origin and American citizenship, and second-generation immigrants who only have American nationality. All three CEOs listed were born in India.

[2] The ability to buy off competing talent is one of the reasons for the endurance of capitalism. Capitalist systems tend to be extremely productive. They can offer wages from increased productivity that are higher than the wages that other systems offer from rents.

[3] This is one of the reasons I got into writing about politics. It became common to find people whose professed opinions implied they'd never even heard of Genghis Khan, and at that point, I figured the bar was set pretty low.

[4] Positions on migration appear related, but I'll touch on that in another essay.

[5] One reason it wasn't obvious that people were just making an acceptable targets list at the time was that quite a few people from all over the world have a tendency to get wacky about Jewish people specifically, so putting antisemitism off-limits looked like it was backed by more sophisticated reasoning than it actually was. Obviously, people shouldn't hate Jewish people. The problem with the acceptable targets list approach is that it's fragile – since the list is based on social approval rather than deeper philosophical principles, it can end up being "readjusted" later.

[6] I also suspect that continuing to constantly expose yourself to the worst behavior of other groups may be corrosive. Watching a video where a man is shot on some other street, in some other city, may give you a jolt of adrenaline while you sit helplessly in your chair. Reading about atrocities may make you feel helpless and doomed.

[7] This behavior is morally praiseworthy, not morally obligatory.

[themakeupbrush]

Marla Gibbs at the 2024 Emmy Awards, looking fabulous at 92