#And we know that while trauma can fundamentally change you it doesn't have to define you

[that-ineffable-devil]

I think one of my favorite things about the fact that A Nightingale Sang is the in-universe song for Aziraphale and Crowley is that it essentially confirms that Crowley is still an angel underneath all the trauma.

[lonelyalien369]

i wish you could erase your own memories, but i have to admit it would probably mess you up in some irrevocable unknown way that we wouldn't be able to anticipate. kind of like how if we invented time travel, even the smallest changes to the past could have dramatic sweeping effects on the present, like stepping on a single blade of grass, or exhaling a certain amount of air, ie the butterfly effect. if you took away someone's memories, you would fundamentally alter who that person became after that experience changed them. whatever lesson they learned from it would be gone, and they'd be free to possibly make that mistake again. its probably best not to meddle in such areas, but...

when you've been through trauma, it changes you. it imprints itself on the fabric of your soul (if there is such a thing). its not something that can easily be forgotten. it haunts you. it visits you over and over again, in the dead of night, in every waking moment. its effects may weaken over time, or they might suddenly explode back to the forefront of your consciousness, capturing you in a vice grip. you think you can control it. and then something, anything, the smallest, tiniest little thing reminds you of it.

you catch the smell of cigarette ashes on the wind.

the neighbor's garage door opens.

their face appears in your dream, unprompted, unwelcome. to your disgust when you awake, you might have even enjoyed their presence in it.

and then you can't take it anymore. you hate yourself for it. you thought you would be over it by now. you ask yourself, why? why can't i just let them go? you can't stop thinking about it now. you're caught in a deep, dark spiral with seemingly no way out, and it seems like no one's coming to save you.

that's when you start to think that memory erasure would fix everything. but if there was any way to do it, i wouldn't.

i know there are others who have been through far worse than me. when i think about it, it makes me sick to my stomach that humanity is capable of such horrible acts. would they say the same? would they accept the possible risks, to know peace? i can't speak for them, but i can speak for me. as frustrating and terrible and lonely as my current situation is, what i learned from my trauma is something i think i should carry with me. it has changed me. in some ways, for the worse. but, in a terrifying way, i'm more aware of what happens sometimes to some unfortunate people, and being aware means i could help someone. i.. struggle with the words, but i think you know what i mean, right?

what i went through wasn't a unique experience. it happens, unfortunately, everyday, around the world. but, by still being here, i am living proof that you can survive it. i am, stubbornly, still going. and i hope others like me can find the strength to do so as well. because they deserve to break free from their darkness. it doesn't have to define us. we can live our lives, separate from our abusers, and leave them behind to rot, while we flourish and grow.

.....this kinda got out of hand. but i stand by every word. there might not be a magic cure, but we can get through it if we work hard. i love you.

[gracefuldave]

Sometimes you need a place to share some text with a bunch of different people on different apps...

Paulo Freire is the most cited person in modern pedagogy. Even by his Wiki page he is a neo-Marxist, and considering the body count for fascist countries is in the millions and the body count for communist countries is in the hundred millions, think about what being a "neo-fascist" would mean, and to wear that proudly. His term "critical consciousness" is, in my translation, a theory for changing the world. In his own words, it is "the ability to intervene in reality in order to change it." This is the tie to critical theory, the view that the world is governed by power dynamics at the most fundamental level. This is evinced by the statement "Ask not what is true, but to whom defining true serves" (this is metaphysical non-starter in ways an undergrad should be able to see.) To put it another way, "might makes right." The insistence that power is primary, that truth is only an expression of power, justifies using power to fight back against the way things are, as seen in the culture of deplatforming, that words or ideas cause "hurt" or "trauma" or deny someone their right to "safety." If words are violence, then violence can be used justly against words. Still, change the world, sounds great. But we are speaking about education, the training of young minds. The job of a teacher is to teach students how to understand the world, not to know what *I* think the world is, but to give them the tools to come to their own conclusions, to maintain their diversity of perspective: the whole reason why diversity is valuable. After all, I might actually be wrong! An activist, however, is one who teaches them to change the world. The change is primary to them. To change without understanding is damaging - it is infinitely easier to break than to build, so what are the odds you'll make an improvement when you haven't understood what you are changing? Or, I know, it's crazy, but maybe the thing you want to change doesn't need changing! Or it's changing quite well on its own, thanks. Notice the slogans aren't "improve the world." It's always "change." Change when you're an adult and have agency over your life, so you can show you can make changes in your own life for the better before you start making them to the world as a child.

So let's then look at Brazil's education system first. This guy was exiled by the government for his subversive teaching; apparently he taught 300 adults how to read and write in 45 days. What does "read and write" mean in this context? How was it assessed? Where are they now? Even the Wiki doesn't have a link, which you think it should, as extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. I can't find any actual source of that. I'm trying to find English copies of Brazilian documentaries currently, to see if there is any primary footage or interviews or something. I’m not saying it’s not out there, but I don’t usually have to work this hard to find something like this. So how about data on the countries that implemented his policies? Because when he was let back into the country after the government changed and they infused their education system with his teachings, what happened to Brazil? Should we be trying to emulate theirs? Their adult literacy rate, to look at the best example to see his method in action, in 2010 was 92%, after steadily rising since the 60s. Wow, that's good news! Guess what? So did all the other Latin American countries! Brazil's not even at the top for percentage or rate of learning. 92% isn't that impressive when you look at the 99%s of Canada or even that of Uruguay!

The chapter in the book I was assigned today has a quote from Nicol, Archibald, and Baker (2012) that says culturally responsive education is "an approach to teaching and learning that facilitates critical consciousness, engenders respect for diversity, and acknowledges the importance of relationship, while honouring, building upon, and drawing from the culture, knowledge and language of the students, teachers, and local community." Leaving aside the observation that the citation is from 2012 and what that means (basically humanities courses aren't like science where the newest data is the most accurate or useful), this sounds great, unless you know Freire's term "critical consciousness." Without that bit, it actually sounds amazing, and I am actually convinced that most of that sentence is good and powerful thinking that will actually make the world better. Making learning meaningful is a powerful and important idea. It also makes your job easier, and besides, you should be able to justify to a student why you are forcing them to learn what you are teaching them - if it's not meaningful to you it won't be them. One way to do that is to engage with the student's identity, and through that, culture. It's fundamental to teaching effectively on any metric.

But, to then agitate them so they see what they, as young people, deem is unjust and empowering them to disrupt, dismantle, and destroy (their terms) that which oppresses (you're either with us or against us) is not the role of education, nor should it be, for teachers are, in fact, agents of the state. Even worse than children breaking things without first understanding them is the teacher that has accepted they cannot be neutral, cannot be a bystander, so they push forward their slightly more sophisticated worldview to make things "better," a place of authority that, in my experience, the average teacher really isn't qualified to take. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, we know this. A worldview that puts a moral imperative onto its followers, that doesn't require an appeal to truth but only power, that splits the world into good guys and bad guys so that a universal revolution for the good of the lower classes occurs and what comes will definitely be better than before we totally promise, is a story the 20th century was supposed to have taught us to recognize and avoid, for everyone's sake.

[circumlocutive]

We go right to making appeals to authority through lived experience. I can do that too! I actually don't think you know more than me, considering the biomedical engineering degrees I have + the fact that you link to a... Podcast.... As your authority. I also know the years I spent on my degrees in biotechnology (i.e. genetics) and biochemical engineering to understand the way both mass and energy works on a more fundamental physics level, how the various systems of the body manage their metabolism/how the breaking and formation of individuals chemical bonds consume and liberate energy, and how genetics influence but do not wholly determine phenotype, is not "bullshitting [you] with the first thing [I] read on the internet."

I also already agreed some people are prone to retaining weight, but prone to =/= impossible to avoid.

I can also agree that people try very hard to modify their bodies and that conditions like hypothyroidism and others can make that more difficult than for others. I also agree that dieting usually doesn't work, but not in the way that is suggested- that it is impossible for some configurations of genetics. Dieting doesn't work because people are really shitty at calculating energy per unit food, because people suck at estimating how many units they're consuming AND using (especially if they have a slow metabolism), because it's easy to noncomply, because a lot of diets are unscientific bullshit (like raw diets), because some people live in food deserts, because fattening foods are naturally desirable and addictive, [ad infinitum].

What I'm saying is, is while there are many factors interfering, the claim that on a fundamental level "ob*sity can be prevented" is yes a true fact. Forced starvation will force you to lose easily digested sugars first, then fat, then muscle until either death or you eat enough to maintain equilibrium. I don't think weight /should/ be prevented that way, it's absolutely dehumanizing and not a worthy priority imo, but it's a fact that it would eventually work. Even if you have a low metabolism due to genetics or epigenetics (you're correct about things like starvation in your inheritance line causing epigenetic changes that encourage fat retention, which is by mechanism of lowered metabolism ie less energy out), it will never be zero energy consumed unless you are dead. And if you're not replacing energy to consume, it will be sourced from chemical bonds in your mass until dead.

But whatever you're not going to care or read any of that because you're emotionally responding from a place of trauma and pain. Maybe youll try to own me one more time, while again refusing to engage because your pain is too great. I see your pain. I agree society is cruel. I agree you shouldn't have been made to suffer for your weight.

But fuck you for bringing up my weight as a gotcha for your argument, even if I wasn't intentionally gaining as part of my eating disorder recovery. I wasn't even attacking you (genuinely didn't see the star in ob*sity so I was trying to use your language back, but I'll own that mistake and apologize for that part specifically because I wasn't trying to use purposefully inflammatory language at that point). I'm pointing out that the WHO is indeed indicating a fact and not, actually, calling for fat genocide.

Also @this

If I cared more I'd diagram this but I'm just up late tipsy and ranting. but oh my god you have a fundamental misunderstanding of closed and open systems. No shit it's not some adiabatic batch reactor model from baby's first energy balance equations, if you define the system as the body it's open across the skin boundary like every other practical process in the world. The mass and energy isn't conserved across the boundaries of the body system- it's conserved in the entire universe, which is a closed system your body is part of. in and out and accumulation for the body's subsystem within the universe is complex but will always sum to net zero mass and energy movement because the universe is closed.

But besides, just like when calculating inputs and outputs for real life processes that are open, you can absolutely systematically modulate the input and determine the equilibrium point experimentally to avoid errors of theoretical calculations. It's the same shit you do to determine how much hot water you need to flow around the walls of an open system to deliver the calories of heat required to bring a novel industrial process to a particular temperature. Humans aren't exempt from the laws of energy just because the input to output paths are obfuscated lmfao the bulk phenomena is absolutely something that can be accounted for. How do you think we calculate shit like how much food to grow bacteria in a continuous flow process.

Something that I really can't believe (but honestly, why am I even shocked at this point?) is that one of the "facts," and it literally calls this a fact, on the World Health Organization's website about fatness is "Ob*sity is preventable."

Now if you actually look into the research, you find that weight is so determined by genetics that it is as determined by genetics as your height. It's almost entirely genetics-based. What you eat and how much you exercise affects weight very little. On top of that, history of starvation (which includes dieting) actually makes you more likely to be fat and even affects your genes so that your future descendants will be more likely to be fat.

So the World Health Organization saying that fatness is "preventable" is literally only stating a "fact" if they mean preventable by keeping anyone with fatness in their genes from procreating.

Otherwise known as eugenics.

-Mod Worthy