#I don't mean in a ''failings of the us educational system'' way I mean in a ''years of intense educational neglect'' way

[just-an-enby-lemon]

I'll try to be nice and polite about it because I really think you are coming from a good place: but the thing is you are just wrong.

At least based on my perspective as part of the Latam, all the factors you mentioned were struggles for you and others from the US to learn foreing languages happened here. The difference is that the average brazilian with no classes till maybe high school, the idea learning english is hard and boring and no incitive whastover still needs to know english to get okay-ish jobs, to study in certain academic fields, even to just deal with rude turists in some places. English is more and more becaming a skill that is unacessible but we still HAVE to get.

And this is by design. Is a way to keep us in our place, if we don't understand your language the oportunities created by the US egemony are closed to us and that makes less likely for people from Latin America, specially poor and native people, to get even remotedly close to an even playing field.

The problem isn't simply that you guys don't know our languages is that not knowing our languages means nothing. Doors aren't closed to you the same way they are to us. In that way the biggest problem is that we are forced to know yours.

In Brazil in theory we learn english starting at middle school. When I went to school it was starting when we were eleven. If you ever went to an english class in most public schools or even rural private schools you know that's not really how it works. We spend ten years on the "to be" verb. English was the grade people did because it was easy since we didn't actually had to do shit. The very marjority of people I know don't know english and all the ones I know that do did not learn it from school. But all of them feel like they have to.

In a more personal level I love english, I always loved languages and I would have loved to have learned english at school for fun.

But I learned english because my parents begged from relatives and took extra hours at work to give me some classes and the classes didn't even work as much as I noticed how hard it was for them and had to find ways to make it work for me. And my parents did all that because my cousin failed a bunch of job interviews for not knowing english. They did that because according to them "knowing english was becaming less a skill that helped someone in getting a great job and more a skill you needed to have to get most jobs." Neither of my parents speak english. But they did their best so me and my brother could (mostly via making me teach my brother cause they couldn't pay lessons for the both of us).

I had none of that to help me learn spanish nor italian nor any language I would love to learn for fun if I had the time.

I didn't learn english because it was fun. My brother hates languages. He still learned english after painfull horrible lessons that made me give up on my dreams of ever being a teacher.

The problems are way deeper than your shitty educacional system and it angers people like us because we had all the same problems and were forced to learn your language anyway only to see someone go "well we never had the chance" when neither did we. And I understand that not being incentivized to learn sucks, we didn't either, but the problem is way deeper. They don't want us to learn your language. They want us to have to but fail so that can be used as a justification to deny us oportunities. Is why imigrant characthers with broken english are still a joke on your media.

And this is what this post and this conversation is about. Not knowing other languages might be a result of bad education, might even be by design. But not HAVING to DESPITE the lack of everything is a privilege. And this is the point.

I rarely bring this up because it feels like fairly silly and low-stakes compared to all the other effects of american imperialism, but one of the funniest things when Americans deny that living in the imperial core and the center of global cultural hegemony confers them any sort of privilege over people from the imperial periphery is that like. In order for this conversation where you tell me you have no privilege over me to even be able to take place one of us had to learn the other's language, and it wasn't you.

I think the fact that by default the onus of learning the other's language to enable communication is always put on the other side is a pretty significant privilege on the cultural front.

[howtobeamagicalgirl]

Yanno....

[absentlyabbie]

seriously, though. i work in higher education, and part of my job is students sending me transcripts. you'd think the ones who have the least idea how to actually do that would be the older ones, and while sure, they definitely struggle with it, i see it most with the younger students. the teens to early 20s crowd.

very, astonishingly often, they don't know how to work with .pdf documents. i get garbage phone screenshots, sometimes inserted into an excel or word file for who knows what reason, but most often it's just a raw .jpg or other image file.

they definitely either don't know how to use a scanner, don't have access to one, or don't even know where they might go for that (staples and other office supply stores sometimes still have these services, but public libraries always have your back, kids.) so when they have a paper transcript and need to send me a copy electronically, it's just terrible photos at bad angles full of thumbs and text-obscuring shadows.

mind bogglingly frequently, i get cell phone photos of computer screens. they don't know how to take a screenshot on a computer. they don't know the function of the Print Screen button on the keyboard. they don't know how to right click a web page, hit "print", and choose "save as PDF" to produce a full and unbroken capture of the entirety of a webpage.

sometimes they'll just copy the text of a transcript and paste it right into the message of an email. that's if they figure out the difference between the body text portion of the email and the subject line, because quite frankly they often don't.

these are people who in most cases have done at least some college work already, but they have absolutely no clue how to utilize the attachment function in an email, and for some reason they don't consider they could google very quickly for instructions or even videos.

i am not taking a shit on gen z/gen alpha here, i'm really not.

what i am is aghast that they've been so massively failed on so many levels. the education system assumed they were "native" to technology and needed to be taught nothing. their parents assumed the same, or assumed the schools would teach them, or don't know how themselves and are too intimidated to figure it out and teach their kids these skills at home.

they spend hours a day on instagram and tiktok and youtube and etc, so they surely know (this is ridiculous to assume!!!) how to draft a formal email and format the text and what part goes where and what all those damn little symbols means, right? SURELY they're already familiar with every file type under the sun and know how to make use of whatever's salient in a pinch, right???

THEY MUST CERTAINLY know, innately, as one knows how to inhale, how to type in business formatting and formal communication style, how to present themselves in a way that gets them taken seriously by formal institutions, how to appear and be competent in basic/standard digital skills. SURELY. Of course. RIGHT!!!!

it's MADDENING, it's insane, and it's frustrating from the receiving end, but even more frustrating knowing they're stumbling blind out there in the digital spaces of grown-up matters, being dismissed, being considered less intelligent, being talked down to, because every adult and system responsible for them just

ASSUMED they should "just know" or "just figure out" these important things no one ever bothered to teach them, or half the time even introduce the concepts of before asking them to do it, on the spot, with high educational or professional stakes.

kids shouldn't have to supplement their own education like this and get sneered and scoffed at if they don't.

[livingdeadhorse]

idk what this is. i like robots. i’ll clean these up later. i think.

anyways while drawing these I started thinking abt like. idk does this count as an AU.

General shit:

I didn't make it clear, but the robots that have pupils were built without a hardcoded purpose. They've always been free to explore what they want to do. The robots with fully colored "scleras" were created with a purpose from the jump, so their creators didn't feel the need to make them appear more "human".

The more expensive a robot's parts are, the less clunky it is.

Right now, I'm going with "their human family built them" but that's liable to change.

The designs are also liable to change because uh. duh.

Celestia Ludenberg:

Viewed the robots with an imbued purpose as interesting and superior (something something humanity's advancement). She wants to be praised like that, so she emulates them

Her cat loves how much heat she radiates so it's always near her.

Most of her upgrades are cosmetic but if they aren't, they're stupid. She won't upgrade her CPU or her motherboard, but she'll load up with three 4090s that her other components can't even keep up with. Yes, she does it to flex.

She'll distract from bootleg, refurbished, or shoddily painted parts by turning on her RGB. It gets annoying.

She knows that she's fairly unsettling and she revels in it.

All things considered, her cable management is pretty good.

Her gambling skill is still just luck here, but she tells everyone it's because she has a never-seen-before GPU(& CPU) that does calculations at insane speeds.

Most don't believe her but have no way to disprove her lie.

Kiyotaka Ishimaru

I can't decide if he was built by his father or his grandfather.

Either way, he was built before Toranosuke's downfall, so his internals were all pretty expensive for the time. Luckily for him, that means he was slightly future-proof and has a viable upgrade path.

Unluckily for him, this means he's stuck with really old parts and his 8gb of RAM can barely keep up in a 32gb world sadge

His chassis is built from secondhand or scrap parts. It's why his joints are so ancient in comparison to the rest of him and why he has so much cabling that he can't seem to manage.

Shit chassis = shit airflow = he is always overheating

BUDDY IS YOUR CPU BURNING HOW IS THERE SMOKE

Older tech = LOUD AF. The class bought him new fans to avoid the loud ass whirring. It's not quiet but he used to sound like a jet engine.

He runs on Debian. It was originally going to be Arch since it's lightweight but Debian's whole "old but stable" reputation fits him more. I don't see him properly dealing with bleeding edge software anyways.

His room is filled with past HDDs that no longer have storage. He deems all educational material important so he refuses to delete any lessons. He doesn't have the money for SSDs.

Mukuro Ikusaba:

Is usually in reconnaissance mode, meaning she has a shit ton of hidden cameras in her chassis

This used to benefit Fenrir. Now it benefits Junko.

She can have her parts shifted around with no issue to make room for a better arsenal.

She’s durable in her reconnaissance mode but she’s nigh on untouchable in her combat mode. Her chassis gets 10x bulkier and she can split her attention to several different tasks on the battlefield.

Fenrir Mercenary Group doubles as a weapons company. Mukuro is the only model of her kind though.

They tried to give her reconnaissance model the look of a “normal girl” so she could gather info more efficiently. They failed real bad. They also didn’t account for the fact that Mukuro isn’t good at socializing.

She allocates a CPU core to a process dedicated to Junko. 24/7 365

She believes herself to be less capable of emotion than she actually is. She can’t seem to find the system process that triggers such painful emotions.

Chihiro Fujisaki

Each “fold” in her skirt doubles as a screen. Think of the skirt as having two layers: the top shell and the under shell. The top shell is what doubles as a screen.

Optimized her hardware to work on code as fast as possible (fingers, skirt, etc).

She tends to test out new software on herself regardless of their compatibility with her pre-existing shit. She constantly has to reinstall her OS, but it’s all fun for her.

Speaking of her OS, I was going to make her run on Gentoo but IDK cause of the compile times. It’d be faster if she used distcc but I can’t see her screwing over her classmates like that lol.

So I’m between Nix and Arch.

Insecure about the fact that she overhauled her original model so extensively. Got made fun of for being a ‘defective’ robot. Her father supports her modifications but she still feels bad about having ‘failed’ somehow.

Cue identity issues

She helps out her classmates when it comes to repairs.

Tendency to stay up programming leads to high uptimes. If her friends notice her lagging or crashing, they’ll try to get her to shut down. (In a computer sense lol, not an emotional shut down)

Do y’all remember the xz utils backdoor? Yeah that’s how extensively she combs through code.

Sayaka Maizono

I can’t decide if she was built to be an idol or was originally some other type of robot.

Loves to make kids smile, so she has a sort of candy mechanism in her arm.

Everything about her glows or spins. You will never get bored looking at her.

Her skirt isn’t actually see through I just didn’t feel like erasing the hip joints lmao.

If corpos give her manager enough money, she has to perform with literal ads on her.

State-of-the art facial recognition software. It makes her fans feel special to have their names remembered.

She has a regular sleep cycle due to how load-intensive her everyday life is. Has to shut down for a couple hours every week at least.

Her psychic ability is just her running a million calculations based on people’s behavior and sensing which one is most plausible. This feature is in place to avoid PR disasters during interviews or public appearances.

There really aren’t enough worker’s rights regulations in place for robots.

The company gets alerts whenever she freaks tf out, so she feels even more stifled and repressed. Chihiro helped remove this.

Kyoko Kirigiri

Can’t decide if she was built by her father or grandfather. Probably just built by Jin and he “left” her in Fuhito’s care.

Fuhito made her go through several modifications, hardcoding his own investigative skills into her system.

Her grandfather loves her but has fucked up ideas about her own autonomy.

The events of DR:K still happen. She chose not to replace her hands.

Fuhito doesn’t make much use of a backdoor in her system anymore. He used it a lot more when she was a child but he sees her as a viable heir of the Kirigiri clan now. Chihiro isolated the backdoor to a separate SSD anyhow.

Still complicated father-daughter issues

Everything about her (but her OS) is proprietary, probably commissioned from Towa Industries. Her OS is a fork of Mint. The Windows 7 UI is just because I imagine her grandfather is One of Those lmao.

Has way too many scanners and sensors. She can’t test any evidence herself but she can gather a fair bit of information. Has a vast database for cross-comparison anyways.

Same issues as Togami and Mukuro: sees herself as less capable of emotion than she actually is.

The ramen noodle incident called for actual repairs.

Byakuya Togami

His superiority complex is far worse because he was literally CREATED to be the perfect Togami. You can’t tell him shiiiiiiit.

Gold joints. Scoffs at those with unoptimized cable management or software.

He’s constantly streamlining his own processes. Brings up that he runs on his own OS when Nobody Asked.

Had a similar backdoor to Kyoko’s but Koji did check that one. Obsessively. Nobody would tell Byakuya but He Just Knew. The lack of privacy irritated him. Aloysius helped fix it once Togami finally took over.

Only trusts Aloysius with his repairs. Has a hard time admitting when he needs repairs in the first place so Aloysius hides it under “monthly maintenance”.

Does everything from the terminal even when he 1) shouldn’t and 2) can’t. Bragging rights. He has written a bunch of his own scripts though to speed things up.

Kernel and OS provided to him by Koji. (UNIX-based. Proprietary) Byakuya maintains and builds his own updates. Doesn’t trust cheapskate peasants to do it for him.

Anti-FOSS. For him at least.

Has glasses for the aesthetics. Doesn’t need them.

[mrchiipchrome]

You Always Go To The Parties

W.C. - 5.7 k

okay so this is the project i've been working on for a little, hope y'all like it:) (also listen to American Wedding by Frank Ocean while y'all read this.)

To clarify, this is a lionesses x r series too, but this is literally just the chapter of introduction so that we can get to know the characters.

-----------------------

“Do I really have to go? I can’t even drink legally here.” You groan, there was nothing stopping you from collecting your things and getting the hell out of that apartment in Boston, well except the manners instilled in you from an early age. There was nothing you’d like more than to crawl up in bed and sleep for the next few weeks.

No way Emma would let you do that. 

The sophomore defender had been one of the only people that had come back to college early, having been asked to show you around the campus and the facilities. She had quickly taken you under her wing, which meant that she wouldn’t let you sulk in bed the rest of August.

Brown cardboard boxes filled to the brim with different things, ranging from clothes to knick knacks, were stacked to the ceiling in the otherwise empty apartment. You didn’t mind, clearly, but it bothered Em.

You tuck your hands behind your head, staring up at the ceiling from your mattress that was placed directly on the floor. Your button up had the first few buttons undone, the top of your chest displayed for Em to see, you had even put your fancy trousers on for the stupid party you didn’t even want to attend.

“Yes, you really have to. How else do you expect to make friends, your cute British accent will only get you that far, you actually need to put in some effort okay?” Rolling your eyes at her words, you were quickly made to get up off the makeshift bed, getting pushed towards the door.

“But-” 

“No buts, you are going because I need someone to drive me home when I’m black out drunk tonight, you don’t want me to drink and drive right?” You can’t help but contemplate over her words, feeling the girl’s hand come down on your shoulder harshly. 

Clearly she didn’t like that.

“I mean you could just, I don't know…not drink?” She looks at you like she’s disgusted you’d even think about saying something like that, like she has to drink.

“Wow, it really is obvious your parents are rich.” You lock the door up as you look at her through the corner of your eye, a slightly judgemental look in your eyes.

Your parents were rich, but they didn’t spoil you so you weren’t one of those snobby rich kids, you were just like anyone else. Only you had access to more money than most.

“Shut up.” Emma puts her hands up in the air, like she’s surrendering to you, but you see the way she’s smiling slyly at you. Note to self; don’t get defensive when Em brings up your rich parents.

“You know, I could use a new Gucci bag if you want to contact daddy dear.” She looks up at you pleadingly as you make your way to her car, there was no way you’d use your car, it was far too expensive to be left outside a frat house. You really had to get a more beat up one.

Maybe you’d sell it, and donate the money you got for it to charity. 

“Aw, we’re taking my car?” Em whines, clearly she wanted to take your cool car.

“Aw, I’m not leaving my really expensive car outside of a frat house for hours.” You roll your eyes at her almost like she’s stupid, throwing her the keys so that she could drive, you didn’t even know where it was you were going.

“You know, you are really sassy for being a rich kid.” Em pulls out of the garage, the apartment complex you were living in was just off campus, so near that you walked there every day for pre-pre-season training (absolutely destroying Em every single time without fail).

“Yeah well, I grew up in the public education system in London, so that’s where I get it from.” You look on as the girl in the driver’s seat taps her fingers against the steering wheel, waiting for the red light to turn green.

“Really, I would’ve thought that they had you in private school from the second you popped out.” The green light stands out against the quickly darkening sky, starless and rather bleak, but that’s what you get for living in a big city.

“Nope, they wanted me to have a normal childhood, so here I am.” You motion to yourself, feeling the bumps and dips of the road beneath you, damn potholes.

“I mean fair enough right.” A certain quietness envelops the space between the two of you, it wasn’t uncomfortable, just present without any real purpose.

Your eyes slip shut, with Em turning the radio on, playing soft instrumental music like you weren’t in the middle of Boston where most people prefer hip hop and bubblegum pop. That was probably the biggest culture shock you'd been given so far, the music.

At home it was different, in a neutral way. It was neither better nor was it worse, but it was simply different.

You sink into your seat, the cool air blasting across your skin in that refreshing way, the summer’s heat canceled out by the air coming from the car. Slowly, sleep starts to take over your body in that calming sort of way that you’d wished for earlier.

It had only felt like moments since you’d fallen asleep as Em shakes your shoulders to get you to wake up, the pulsing music coming from the frat house a walking distance away already making your ears hurt. You look around at the surrounding nature, it wasn’t familiar to you, not the trees you’d found yourself memorizing nor the architecture present in Boston.

Even the people looked different, shirts with the printing of a dog on the front instead of the three books representing Harvard. Stupid of you to assume that Em would be rational for once.

“Where are we Em?” You ask, voice riddled with a sleepy kind of innocence that suggested that not everything had registered yet.

“We are in Connecticut, home of the huskies and what might be the best parties you’ll ever experience.” Your eyes shoot open wide, a more than flabbergasted look on your face at her naïve words.

“You kidnapped me and then drove me all the way to Connecticut for a party we could just as well have found in Boston?!” You ask her incredulously, like you couldn’t really believe her. And you couldn’t.

“Yeah, technically I did but you’ll also get to experience the party of your lifetime, so I think that it’s fine.” She tries to justify her actions by trying to reason with you, and whilst it doesn’t work in the way she wishes, Emma’s just happy you’re not totally freaking out.

“Come on grumpy, let’s go. Who knows, you might even have some fun.” Em pulls you along towards the house spewing flashing lights in a hundred different colors.

You let your eyes adjust to the blinking lights as you enter through the open front door, seeing the entire bottom floor of the mansion-like house covered with hundreds of students, packed together tightly like a sweaty sardine can.

The house reeks of bad body wash, moldy pits and strong cheap alcohol, and in a sense of the word Em really did tell the truth, you’d never seen anything like it before. It was almost like those frat boys couldn’t afford to buy deodorant.

If your arm wasn’t as firmly attached to your body as it was, you were sure that Emma would’ve torn it off by now, the resistance of the sweaty bodies pushing against your own as she leads you to the kitchen proving to be a difficult task for her weak arms.

Reaching the entrance of the large kitchen, the first thing you notice is that it’s not as tightly packed as the living room, only a few stragglers here and there with the stereotypical red solo cups can be found in every single person’s hand. Future alcoholists.

 “Okay, base rules since you’ve never been to a college party before, don’t take a drink from anyone you don’t know, don’t accept anyone’s request to go upstairs or somewhere private, you’ll most likely get robbed, don’t be too snarky, people don’t appreciate that and… I think that’s all. Have a nice night!” And with that she’s off to the living room, plucking a cup from a random man’s hand and taking a sip before leading him to the dance floor.

Yeah, base rules or whatever.

Standing alone in the kitchen, you suddenly feel so awkward. The only real parties you’d been to were the one’s your friends threw when your parents were away on their stupidly long business trips, just the chaotic friend group drinking together.

So this, college parties, was something that was totally out of your comfort zone and you’d never hated anyone as much as you hated Em right at that moment.

Spotting a boy out of the corner of your eye, you approach him with confident, yet still relatively hesitant steps, a question at the tip of your tongue. He looks up at you when you’re close enough to smell the odor of old spice deodorant and way too much sweat, his hat turned backwards on his head to hide the greasy hair still somehow poking its way through.

You almost feel bad for the poor thing, well that is until his mouth opens and you’re staring into the hell that is a frat boy’s gob. 

“‘Sup dude, what can I do for you?” His eyes run all along your body, from your ankles up to your face where he notices the annoyed expression.

“I was wondering if you had anything non alcoholic.” You smile staley, eyebrows furrowing together when his eyes light up like a kid on christmas. His laugh feels slightly insulting, especially when his hand comes up to point at you, but there’s really not a lot you could do.

“Dude totally, say the thing though.” You look at him confused, like you didn’t know what he meant. Spoiler alert; you did. “Y’know bo'ohw'o'wo'er.” 

He laughs again when you roll your eyes, and even if all you desire is to punch his stupid face in, you still say the phrase. Was it worth it for a coke? Eh, debatable.

He opens the fridge and throws you the can and laughs once more at your dirty look.

Sipping the drink slowly as you make your way around the house, the UConn students around you stare unashamedly at you, like they knew your face from somewhere, but you weren’t familiar per se. 

Your face scrunches up at the metallic taste of the American coke, much preferring the Mexican one they had in the canteen. You couldn’t complain too much though, you were the one who actually let yourself get dragged to the party.

It’s sudden, the way her eyes catch yours. Deep pools of endearing brown that capture your entire soul in a single second. The girl was mesmerizing as she stood leaning against the wall across from you, her long brown hair falling so effortlessly down her back.

Her gaze is just focussed on you for a second or two, her attention soon being stolen by the man standing in front of her, a sleazy smirk on his face as his eyes ran all along her body. It was clear that she was uncomfortable purely by the way her lips were turned downwards and the way her hands fiddled with the hem of her crop top.

There seems to be a lull in their one sided conversation as she looks to you almost pleadingly, getting the hint almost immediately, you walk over with confident steps, dropping the now empty can on the floor on the way.

The man is almost as tall as you, his burly shoulders disproportionate to the rest of his awkward body, his meaty hands gripping the red cup tightly like he was afraid someone would steal it from him. His hooded eyes do a once over when he spots you nearing them, almost turning a green pale at the sight of you.

You don’t understand why, there was no way you knew him and being recognised as Harvard’s newest addition would be unlikely. Especially in Connecticut.

“Everything alright here?” The girl seems startled by your accent, but she quickly schools her features so as to not show her surprise. Her hands wrap around your waist, and when you look down at her she looks back up at you with pleading eyes, asking you to just go along with it for the time being.

Your arm wraps around her shoulders and she leans into your body almost subconsciously, like you’ve known each other for much longer than you have.

“Yeah, everything’s going good.” He says, not backing down despite having been nervous at your mere presence only seconds before.

“Really? Because from where I stood it looked like you were flirting with my girlfriend.” You don’t even get the satisfaction of watching his gummy smile fade from his thin lips as he takes in your words, because he walks away from you before you can see it.

It makes you chuckle, especially since he walks up to another girl almost immediately, getting turned down in the same second.

“You okay?” You question the girl in your arms, her hand still resting on your waist as you take her in. You can feel her hair against your arm, her nails digging into your skin ever so slightly and the rest of her body pressed so tightly against your own.

“Yeah, he just wouldn’t leave me alone, thank you for the help.” She smiles at you sweetly, her brown eyes shining under the flashing lights. You smile back at her softly, noticing the way her grip loosens, you quickly let up on your grip of her shoulders.

Her unsure steps catch your attention as she takes your hand in her soft one, just like Em had done earlier in the evening.

“Where are you taking me?” You laugh through the sentence as she tries to pull you through the crowd of people, stumbling over her feet clumsily every so often.

“Do you like burgers?” She questions hastily, nearly having pulled you all the way to the front door already, she was a lot stronger than Em that’s for sure.

"Doesn't everyone?” You smile goofily when she looks back at you, her eyes narrowed playfully when you send her a wink. It’s only when you’re already out the door that you realize that Em is still in there, with people you don't know. Strangers.

You stop walking, the girl’s hand still in yours as she too stops, looking back at you confused.

“I’m sorry but my friend, Em, is still in there and I don’t want to leave her alone with strangers.” Her eyes light up again and you look at her weirdly, not understanding why she looked so happy that you had to leave.

“Em Whitmore?” She giggles at the shocked look on your face, clearly you didn’t know much about Em, the girl thinks to herself. You look at her suspiciously, how did she know Em?

“Yeah…how’d you know?” You ask her, still suspicious of her pretty intoxicated form. Her laugh carries all throughout the empty night, no one out and about except you and the mystery girl who’s soft hand is still in yours.

“I know her brother, she comes to a lot of parties here, because she knows she’ll be safe.” The brunette starts pulling you along again and you let yourself follow her, no longer worried about your Harvard counterpart. Her brother wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her.

By the time you reach the 50’s themed diner, you’ve already walked for ten minutes, side by side with the dark haired girl. You’re lucky that it wasn’t too far away, the half stumbling girl beside you probably wouldn’t have been able to walk that far without falling over.

The bell at the top of the door chimes when she pushes it open, the bored looking cashier perking up when he sees your companion. It was empty in the diner and you couldn’t imagine that keeping it open for this long wasn’t only for the drunk college students looking for a quick snack.

She drags you over to a booth in the corner, decorated in red and white stripes, a glass with straws standing in the middle of the table with a napkin holder beside it.

“Welcome to Donna’s Diner, what can I get for you?” The boy from the counter comes up to the booth after you’ve both settled, handing the two of you plastic menus. The dark haired girl smiles up at him, that fantastic glint in her eye once more.

“Come on now Alex, no need to be all professional.” You look up at him from where you’re sitting, his blonde hair curling around his ears, green eyes staring into yours kindly, thin fingers clasping the small notebook in his hands.

“Alex, this is my new friend, she knows Callum’s little sister, mystery friend, this is Alex and he’s in one of my classes.” You smile at him softly, sticking your hand out for him to shake, and he does take it in a confident grip, sending you a smile of his own.

“I’m Y/n.” Now the mystery girl looks up at you, finally a name attached to your face.

“Nika, I already know what you want, but how about you?” He looks to you when he speaks, obviously you wouldn’t know what to order, it being your first time there and all.

“I’ll just have whatever she’s having with a chocolate milkshake.” Alex disappears behind the counter again, your eyes following his retreating form. Looking away from the kitchen door, your eyes quickly meet the ones of the girl you now know as Nika.

One of her hands was tucked under her chin, keeping her head up in order to look at you. Relaxing into the cushions behind you, the small smile slowly taking over your face suddenly becomes full blown.

“What is it?” She giggles under her breath at your inquisitive look, and despite not knowing much more than her name, you already felt like she knew your soul inside and out.

“Nothing…it’s just that this is the last place I would’ve thought that you would bring me to.” The furrow in her brow is frankly quite adorable, her head turning to the side just in time to catch Alex walking out the kitchen with your food. 

You see the way her eyes light up again, the platter of pure greasy goodness at the center of her attention right at that moment. All you could think about at that second was how thankful you were that the season hadn’t started yet, because everything there broke every single diet you could think of.

Looking to the brunette, the laugh bubbling up from the pit of your stomach is almost one of wonder, because the beautiful girl had already managed to get through half the burger that was in front of her. It seemed like her intoxicated brain only was focussed on one thing, satiating her hunger.

It isn’t long until you follow her lead, picking up the burger and just trying to get the most you could of it in your mouth. You can’t help the groan that escapes you when the exquisite flavours hit your taste buds all at once, having to lean back into the cushions of the booth to be able to take it all in, closing your eyes fully to enhance the experience even further.

It’s only when she laughs that you finally open your eyes again, only to see her looking right at you like you were made of glass, like she could read you like a book and then play you like a fiddle.

“I understand, I had the exact same reaction when I tried it.” She continues to giggle at you when you start to eat like a poor man starved. It was a funny sight to be fair, the way your fancy act completely disappears when in contact with amazing food.

“How’d you even find this place?” You question her when you’ve swallowed and wiped your mouth off with a napkin, you still had manners after all. She smiles at you, gesturing at your surroundings, at the tables and the booths, the chairs and the ketchup bottles, at everything.

“I was drunk after a party once in freshman year and I just stumbled across it.” You nod in response, completely understanding the randomness of how she’d found the place. When you’re drunk, all you want is some greasy food.

“So it’s a well guarded secret between the students then? I assume there’s usually more people here at this time of night.” You take a sip of the milkshake when the last word has fallen from your lips, heat spreading across your face at the intense look you’re getting from the brunette in front of you.

It’s probably just because she’s drunk, you think quietly to yourself, almost trying to convince your mind that the stupidly attractive smile on her face was just one of momentary value, that it was only because it was late and you were tired that it affected you in the way it did.

“Yeah, something like that.” She responds, a comfortable silence enveloping you two as you continue to eat.

The only thing that could be heard was the murmur of the fan across the room, the patting of the fingers of the boy, Alex, at the counter and the sound of shallow breathing. Well that was until her accented voice breaks it with a question.

“So, how’d you manage to befriend the girl with the scariest brother ever?” Nika asks you, her fingers playing with the napkin she’d taken only moments before. Her teeth capture her bottom lip softly as she looks at you tentatively, she’s positively driving you nuts with her pure unfiltered beauty.

“Well, for starters we both play football for Harvard, but she was the first one there to greet me, to help me pack up the necessities and all that. She never did mention a brother though.” You relish in the way she looks at you, all flustered and sweet despite you not having done anything in particular. It was adorable. Pause.

She nods absentmindedly, opening her mouth to speak before closing it and then opening it again, resembling a fish out of water more than anything.

“Were you going to say something love?” You ask the now blushing girl, and she hides her face in her hands at the embarrassment, clearly having zoned out for a little while there.

Reaching over, you pat her shoulder comfortingly before you ask her your next question.

“How about you? How do you know Em’s brother?” Nika reaches over the table to steal a few of your fries, laughing at the betrayed look on your face.

Maybe it was the drinks or maybe you were just funnier than you’d originally thought, either way the angelic sound of her laughing had graced your ears many times that evening. Not that you minded, you didn’t even mind a little bit.

“He plays basketball, I play basketball, and sometimes we train together.” You can’t help the feeling taking over you, the burning feeling that makes you question everything you’d ever known about yourself. Just the thought of your friend’s brother getting to enjoy her company makes the feeling inside you that much worse.

 It seems like she sees the way your expression changes just that little bit before it goes back to normal.

“So, you’re like…close?” You ask the basketball player timidly, rolling your eyes only seconds later when the brunette decides to take a sip of your milkshake.

“No, not especially close. I mean, we talk when we have to at the shared training sessions, but not outside of it. But realistically though, who in the world of college sports doesn’t know Callum Whitmore?” Looking at her cluelessly, you sarcastically shrug as if to say you, because you truly hadn’t known a single thing about the man before she had told you.

By the third time Nika reaches for your fries, you decide to just push them towards her and let her have them, you weren’t even hungry after the monster burger you’d just consumed. It wasn’t at all just because she was too pretty not to get whatever she wanted. Pause.

“You want to switch?” She gestures to your drinks, she’d gotten a strawberry milkshake that she didn’t seem to fancy all that much right at that moment. Sighing goodnaturedly, you give her a nod and allow her to take whatever was left of your shake, smiling softly as you sip absentmindedly at the pink shake she’d given you. 

Soon enough, the only thing that could be heard over the natural noise of the diner was the slight slurping every so often.

“I just got to go wash up, then I’ll walk you home, okay?” The brunette nods as she looks at you leaving, pulling out her phone to seemingly start to text someone not long after.

You walk up to Alex, who’s still standing at the counter and he smiles in your direction when you near, only seeing you out of the corner of his eye. Pulling out your wallet, you hold out your card to him.

“Could you do a to go order? God knows she’ll need that in the morning.” You nod your head in Nika’s direction, Alex smiling widely at you.

“You know, I’ve never seen her with you before…” His voice trails off, as if to tell you to fill in the blanks.

“Yeah, we only met tonight.” You smile at him staley, not understanding why the timeline of events was so important.

“You must be special then if she brought you here, it’s not often she brings anyone other than her friends here after a night out. Nico, drop me two burgers on the grill, one choc milkshake and a strawberry one.” As you walked towards the bathroom of the establishment, putting your card back in your wallet, you started to think about his words, wasn’t this place well known? What made it so special to Nika that the server had to point out how she never brought strangers there?

Wiping your hands off on your trousers, you go up to your table to collect Nika before swinging by the counter to pick up your to-go order, the brown paper bag looking out of place next to the two of you. It seems like she’s sobered up at least a little as she looks at you questioningly, her eyes soon falling to the bag in your hands and then back up at your face.

The bell chimes again when the two of you exit the diner, the cooling air of the late night a contrast to the warm atmosphere of the diner.

“What’s that for?” The furrow in her brow is so endearing that you almost feel the skip in your heartbeat, her eyes narrowing at you ever so slightly. Her arm threads through yours, one of your hands in the pocket of your trousers, creating the perfect space for her arm to go through.

You sneak a glance at her, flyaways being highlighted by the streetlights you were passing. Her head meets your shoulder as you start to walk back to the party, her apartment couldn’t be too far from it considering she hadn’t mentioned anything when you offered to walk her home.

“It’s for you, I just know that hungover Nika is going to crave Donna’s diner’s milkshakes to calm her raging headache.” You tease her softly, but there was definite truth there either way.

If there was one thing you knew about being hungover, then it was that good food usually helped at least a little (well, after the spells of throwing up everything from the previous night.) You give her a cheeky smile as you near the party once more, the booming music being heard from miles away. 

“Thank you, you didn’t have to do that.” She speaks sincerely, you just smile at her in response, did you have to do it? No, but she’d kept you company all night so you did it anyway.

“Hey, can I just stop by my friend’s car before I walk you home? I just have to get something.” You were so thankful that you’d stolen the keys from Em before you went into the party only hours before. Leading her to the beat up truck, unlocking it and opening the door, you place the bag on the ground before you look through the glove compartment.

Finding the cartridge of painkillers and the pen that you were searching for with a small ‘aha’. The post-it notes Em always kept in her car finally came to use when you stole one, writing a quick message on it before sticking it to the plastic of the painkillers and dropping it down the brown paper bag.

You lock the car up, despite it being a piece of shit that no one would ever steal, Em always insisted on you locking it. 

Walking up to her side once more, you open your mouth to speak.

“So, lead the way home love.” You gesture for her to take the lead, it was her apartment after all. Taking your free hand in hers, the girl starts to lead you towards her apartment building, walking calmly side by side with your hands swinging between your bodies.

After passing countless trees, and even more cars, you suddenly find yourselves at the bottom of the slanted hill leading up to where she lives, and when you actually start to walk up the long walkway, it’s slowly almost like you’re both resisting the natural order of events.

But you had to leave her, both Em and Harvard were waiting for you and no matter how much you tried to resist, you knew that’s ultimately where you had to go, it was your life even if the girl you’d just met seemed far more interesting than anything.

When you reach the top, just meters away from the door, you hand her the bag, smiling timidly when she reached out to hug you, her inviting perfume enveloping you in a blanket of warmth. When she pulls away, she thanks you one last time for your kindness.

“Really, it’s no problem.” You reassure her, smiling softly when she turns back towards you one last time before the distance between you becomes larger and larger, her fingers soon punching in the code to open the door.

“Wait!” You call out for her right as she’s about to enter the building, her head turning back to you questioningly. “Don’t forget to put it in the fridge when you get in.” She smiles and nods before disappearing behind the door.

You start your walk back to the party a few minutes after the door has closed, something just keeping you rooted to the ground. It wasn't until you heard your name get called by that familiar voice that you turned around, seeing Nika through her open window, waving at you as you walked away.

It almost felt like you were in some cheesy romance movie as you waved back, turning to walk away after she closed her window. 

Truth be told, the evening had felt like something straight out of a romcom and some part deep down loved it. It loved the cheesy moments of pure unbridled love, the ability to express yourself freely, to dance in the rain, be your true authentic self in front of someone else was something you didn’t even know you longed for before you met Nika.

You shove your hands into the pockets of your trousers, every step you take moving you closer and closer to the frat house, closer to Em and closer to getting back to Boston.

Seeing Em sitting out on the steps of the house has you confused, why was she out there?

“Em? What are you doing out here?” You ask the clearly incredibly intoxicated Emma, your loud voice not even startling her, her slow movements showing just how drunk she is. The squeal she lets out when she sees you has you covering your ears, the intrusive sound killing your tired head.

She tries to stand up, but it just looks like Bambi on ice, stumbling and falling at every second. You come up and sling her arm around your shoulder, bringing her over to her car and sitting her down in the passenger seat.

“I’m not cleaning up if you throw up in here, just so you know.” She nods drunkenly, clearly not understanding a word you were saying.

“The reason why I was sitting outside is a long story.” She leans her head against the window, and knowing Em, she was probably imagining herself in a music video right at that moment.

“You can tell me tomorrow.” The car starts with a rumble and you pull out of the parking space on the side of the road, quickly pulling out and starting to drive on the main road.

It’s quiet for a while and you almost believe that Emma’s asleep, well almost since her feet move back and forth against the floor every so often.

“Where were you huh? What were you doing?” Her words are incredibly slurred and you can barely make out what it is she’s trying to say.

“None of your business mate.” She snickers at you, reading way too much into your response than she should have.

“You got some.” The way your face turns red doesn’t help your case even in the slightest, especially when she herself points out your reddening cheeks.

“Shut up and go to sleep, Em.” Your voice cracks in the middle of the sentence, still embarrassed by her insinuation.

“Mhm, you totally got some pussy.” You sigh as she laughs again, she was clearly getting a lot more joy from the situation than you were.

“Go to sleep Em.”

“Mhm.”

Maybe she had been right after all, maybe you had fun and maybe, just maybe the decision to go to the party was a good one. Not that you’d ever let her know that.

[balioc]

Oh, boy! It's Education Theory o'Clock again!

...I have a lot of thoughts on this topic. At some point, when I'm less busy and tired, I should probably try to write them up. Natively, I'm one of the school-is-a-nightmare-prison people, like so many others in this little discourse-sphere -- but I'm married to a middle school teacher, so I regularly encounter both the good arguments from the other side and the facts on the ground, and those things have altered my perspective somewhat.

But I am, in fact, busy and tired. So for now I'll just content myself with saying:

School is an institution that serves many, many, many purposes at the same time. A lot of those purposes are load-bearingly important. (A couple of years ago, I wrote this about college, and...it's double-plus true for primary and secondary schools.) If you don't try to account for all of that stuff in your theory of What School Is and How School Works, you will generate incoherent garbage thoughts. If you have a New Concept for school entailing top-down design that is optimized for a single function (like "increasing test scores" or "causing kids to love learning" or whatever), you'd better have a plan for how you're going to do all the other important things that schools do. And even if you think that some of those things aren't actually important or necessary, you'd better have a plan for dealing with all the people who disagree. Because...

-----

...school, as it exists today, is an inherently political institution. Both in the "soft" sense that everyone has strong opinions about what it's supposed to do and how it's supposed to work, and in the "hard" sense that it is actually controlled by democratically-accountable governments. (This is double-plus true in the US, where it is controlled by local governments, and therefore doesn't even have the protective insulation of a massive bureaucracy.) Everything about the way schools work is a compromise brokered amongst ideologues and self-dealers. Everything about the way schools work involves a lot of decision-makers trying not to get yelled at by the yelliest people around. If you're looking for elegant purpose-driven top-down design, you won't find it. You could probably make a case that any elegant purpose-driven top-down design would be better than the thing we actually have, but getting there would require finding a way to remove the political element.

-----

Most importantly: public schools are (1) compulsory, (2) universal, and (3) for children. [People who are legally children, anyway, whether or not they are actual children in whatever sense matters to you.]

This means that they cannot let students leave, and they have to keep control of all the students that they aren't allowing to leave.

In the most literal not-a-judgment-but-a-fact sense, they are indeed prisons. They are coercively keeping people inside. They have to do that thing, as per their most fundamental mandate within the current system. The alternatives involve letting kids run around unsupervised, and/or failing to give some kids even the most cursory kind of education, and those things are absolute non-starters under present conditions.

All the normal institutions-for-adults operate on the principle of -- If you really don't want to be here, you can leave, and deal with whatever consequences there may be for leaving. This is not an option for schools, and that fact accounts for...everything.

Classroom structure is built around the necessity of keeping the most-hostile, least-engaged student in the class present and supervised, and then trying to prevent him from disrupting things for everyone else. Because the obvious solution that any other institution would use -- "just cut him loose, he doesn't want to be here and we don't want him here" -- isn't available.

(I once talked to my wife about the rationed bathroom access thing, which is one of the most flagrant nightmare-prison aspects of the school experience. Her response was, "If you let kids use the bathroom whenever they want, as much as they want, then you don't have mandatory universal education anymore. Some of them will never return to the classroom, because they don't want to be there." Which is...obviously true.)

So you have something that replicates many of the features of prison, because it has to accomplish the same basic tasks that prison accomplishes. Yay, Foucault.

[doberbutts]

I remember reading a post that men are the oppressor class so why would they bother to dismantle systemic patriarchy when they actively benefit from its existence? And as I read it, I thought, Damn, so an entire half of the population can never conceivably help us, and the people who love men in their lives are doomed. It wasn't a helpful post. It basically felt, here's some actual material analysis on feminism and said, That trying to educate and make men be part of feminism is fundamentally a flawed effort, because again, they are the oppressor class, why should they care about uplifting the oppressed?

And it made me think about this very good pamphlet I read, explaining how the white worker remained complacent for so long because at least they weren't a Black slave. And that the author theorized the reason labor movements never truly created exceptional, radical change is because of internal racism (which I find true) and failure to uplift black people. And the author listed common outlooks/approaches to this problem, and one of them was: "We should ignore the white folks entirely and hold solidarity with only other POC, and the countries in the Global South. Who needs those wishy-washy white fragile leftists who don't care about what we think or want?" (roughly paraphrased.)

And the author said, This sounds like the most leftist and radical position, but it's totally flawed because it absolves us of our responsibility to dismantle white supremacy for the sake of our fellow marginalized people, and we are basically ignoring the problem. And that blew me away because this is a position so many activists have, to just ignore the white folks and focus entirely on our own movements. I wish I knew the name of the actual pamphlet, so I could quote entire passages at you.

But I feel this is the same for men. Obviously, we should prioritize and have women-led and women-focused feminism. But saying that men are an oppressor class so they can't reliably be counted upon in feminist activism--it's such a huge oversimplification. And mainly, I'm a Muslim, and I've been treated with plenty of misogyny from Muslim men. And also plenty of misogyny from Muslim women. And I love my male friends, I want men to be part of the movement, and I dunno. Thinking about communities, movements, and the various ways we fail each other and what it means to be truly intersectional keeps me up at night.

I don't know the pamphlet you're talking about but I've read and been taught similar. There's a reason much of my anti-racism is so feminist and most of my feminism is anti-racist. Many people coming at this problem from a truly intersectional angle have seen that there is no freedom to be had without joining hands across the community. Not picking and choosing our allies based off of identity but off of behavior.

As used in a previous example, a white abled moderately wealthy man saying "wow Healthcare sucks in this country, why does this system suck so bad" should be told "hey, this system sucks so bad because it's built off of sexism, racism, classism, and ableism. You want to improve the system? Fix those things and it will be much better in the long run" and not "shut up you're a man. Healthcare is always going to be better for you". The second response doesn't fix that Healthcare is still a problem even if you are at the "top" of the privilege ladder. If we want true change, we have to dismantle the entire system at it's core and build it up without the yuck, otherwise you're gunna get to the top and realize this place sucks too.

Something something if the crabs worked together to hold each other up, they could all get out of the bucket and be free.

[genderkoolaid]

sorry if you've talked about it already, but what is it that makes KOSA's idea of online safety wrong? I don't know much about the bill, what does it intend to do?

What do you think is a good way to protect kids from things like online predators or just seeing things that they shouldn't be seeing? (By which I mean sex and graphic violence, things which you'd need to be 16+ to see in a movie theater so I think it makes sense to not want pre-teens to see it)

From stopkosa.com:

Why is KOSA a bad bill? KOSA uses two methods to “protect” kids, and both of them are awful. First, KOSA would incentivize social media platforms to erase content that could be deemed “inappropriate” for minors. The problem is: there is no consensus on what is inappropriate for minors. All across the country we are seeing how lawmakers are attacking young people’s access to gender affirming healthcare, sex education, birth control, and abortion. Online communities and resources that queer and trans youth depend on as lifelines should not be subject to the whims of the most rightwing extremist powers and we shouldn’t give them another tool to harm marginalized communities.  Second, KOSA would ramp up the online surveillance of all internet users by expanding the use of age verification and parental monitoring tools. Not only are these tools needlessly invasive, they’re a massive safety risk for young people who could be trying to escape domestic violence and abuse.

I’ve heard there’s a new version of KOSA. What’s the deal? The new version of KOSA makes some good changes: narrowing the ability of rightwing attorneys general to weaponize KOSA to target content they don’t like and limiting the problematic “duty of care. However, because the bill is still not content neutral, KOSA still invites the harms that civil rights advocates have warned about. As LGBTQ and reproductive rights groups have said for months, the fundamental problem with KOSA is that its “duty of care” covers content specific aspects of content recommendation systems, and the new changes fail to address that. In fact, personalized recommendation systems are explicitly listed under the definition of a design feature covered by the duty of care in the new version. This means that a future Federal Trade Commission (FTC) could still use KOSA to pressure platforms into automated filtering of important, but controversial topics like LGBTQ issues and abortion, by claiming that algorithmically recommending such content “causes” mental health outcomes that are covered by the duty of care like anxiety and depression. Bans on inclusive books, abortion, and gender affirming healthcare have been passed on exactly that kind of rhetoric in many states recently. And we know that already existing content filtering systems impact content from marginalized creators exponentially more, resulting in discrimination and censorship. It’s also important to remember that algorithmic recommendation includes, for example, showing a user a post from a friend that they follow, since most platforms do not show all users all posts, but curate them in some way. As long as KOSA’s duty of care isn’t content neutral, platforms will be likely to react the same way that they did to the broad liability imposed by SESTA/FOSTA: by engaging in aggressive filtering and suppression of important, and in some cases lifesaving, content.

Why it's bad:

The way it's written (even after being changed, which the website also goes over), it is still possible for this law to be used to restrict things like queer content, discussion of reproductive rights and resources, and sexual education.

It will restrict youth's ability to use the Internet independently, essentially cutting off life support to many vulnerable people who rely on the Internet to learn that they are queer, being abused, disabled, etc.

Better alternatives:

Stop relying on ageist ideas of purity and innocence. When we focus on protecting the "purity" of youth, we dehumanize them and it becomes more about soothing adult anxieties than actually improving the lives of children.

Making sure content (sexual, violent, etc.) is marked/tagged and made avoidable for anyone who doesn't want to engage with it.

Teach children why certain things may be upsetting and how best to avoid those things.

Teach children how to recognize grooming and abuse and empower them to stop it themselves.

Teach children how to recognize fear, discomfort, trauma, and how to cope with those experiences.

The Internet makes a great boogeyman. But the idea that it is uniquely corrupting the Pure Innocent Youth relies on the idea that all children are middle-class suburban White kids from otherwise happy homes. What about the children who see police brutality on their front lawns, against their family members? How are we protecting them from being traumatized? Or children who are seeing and experiencing physical and sexual violence in their own homes, by the parents who prevent them from realizing what's happening by restricting their Internet usage? How does strengthening parent's rights stop those kids from being groomed? Or the kids who grow up in evangelical Christian homes and are given graphic descriptions of the horrors of the Apocalypse and told if they ever question their parents, they'll be left behind?

Children live in the same world we do. There are children who are already intimately aware of violence and "adult" topics because of their lived experiences. Actually protecting children means being concerned about THEIR human rights, it means empowering them to save themselves, it means giving them the tools to understand their own feelings and traumas. KOSA is just another in a long line of attempts to "save the children!" by dehumanizing them and giving more power to the people most likely to abuse them. We need to stop trying to protect children's "innocence" and appreciate that children are already growing, changing people, learning to deal with discomfort and pain and the weight of the world the same as everyone else. What people often think keeps kids safe really just keeps them ignorant and quiet.

Another explanation as to why it's bad:

[transmutationisms]

I'm confused about your argument, if you don't think degrees should exist as a barrier for participating a particular profession then how you do believe a standard should be maintained? I'm getting an impression you've got all this experience and credentials in academia and are now basically coming out and saying it's all bullshit. And when we're talking about "cheating", do we mean like using accommodations that bend the rules or just not bothering to do the work at all?

ok you might want to read my last few reblogs, which go into some more depth on this. like ave said earlier, the university as it exists now doesn't exist to spread knowledge but to restrict it. so the idea that a degree granted in this system is primarily a means of ensuring 'qualification' is an idealist fiction. again and like i said earlier, a degree doesn't necessarily even line up with what job a person ends up getting---which should tell us a lot about what a degree actually communicates and the way 'being educated' is evaluated independently of the extent to which a person's degree actually taught them anything of value to a given profession. what a degree mostly signifies in actuality is that a person succeeded at being in school; there are many different ways this can happen (even at the advanced level---any academic can tell you, MAs and PhDs do get awarded to people all the time who are incompetent or produce shitty work). there are people with degrees whom i respect immensely, but i don't assume that an academic credential means a person is 'smart' or that their work is high-quality. like, ted cruz went to harvard and herman cain had an md; credentialled experts have fucked up the covid pandemic, produced the industry-funded work that justifies medical fatphobia, etc etc. none of this critique is a new position on my part.

fundamentally idgaf about cheating because i don't think it's unjust to cheat a system that is itself unjust. i don't think it's wrong morally to view a degree as a hoop you need to jump through in order to access certain jobs, and to do what you need to do in order to get through that hoop. in practice cheating is very often the result of students who desperately need eg to pass a class in order to keep a scholarship, who do not have the financial wiggle room to fail and are not being given options or support by profs or the institution. but tbc there is no way to crack down on cheating that only targets 'less sympathetic' cases!

[smitethestate]

I've got an opinion people will hate.

There is utility in not voting. There's meaning to it. It says something and people who are interested could learn from it if they listened.

Not voting could say "it was too hard for me to vote." It could say "I'm too hopeless to think it will change anything." Or "I wasn't properly informed on why it matters or what it could accomplish."

All of these tell people who want others to vote what needs to be done. Voting needs to be accessible and easy. People need a reason to bother. They need more education or better campaign messaging.

People might even tell you why they didn't vote if they're not afraid that they'll be shamed and scolded and told they're the reason everything is bad.

Politicians are supposed to work for your vote. That's a huge part of their jobs. If people don't vote for them, that's their failure. If people don't vote at all, that's a larger failure that means they didn't make it easy enough and/or they all failed to be a good enough option to bother.

They could take that information and act accordingly, or they could pass the blame and do nothing to actually alleviate the problem. In the US, Democrats in particular should pay attention, because they tend to lose when fewer people vote. That in itself is important information about a huge problem in this country that only the people we vote for have real power to change.

Stop helping those with the power pass the blame for how fucked things are onto those with almost no power. Stop saying that a failure to vote or even a vote for a third option is a vote for Trump. Only a vote for Trump is a vote for Trump. The electoral college and gerrymandering wasn't the non-voter's idea. They didn't choose to be too poor to be able to miss work or too exhausted to stand in those lines or too hopeless to bother opening the mail-in envelope.

Take the data and act based on that. Shaming people is worse than useless.

I don't even think we can vote our way out of the multi-system dysfunction we're in but I offer this lots of swords pointed at me post to you anyway. Best of luck.

[daddyduncan69]

One of my recent posts got a few comments about media literacy being dead and Neil being an unreliable narrator so I want to clear some things up.

Firstly, media literacy isn't dead becuase it cannot die. Also, I am not a big fan of fear mongering. Humans have always sought to understand and communicate with each other about the things we create. It is a skill that can be taught and should be practiced. There is no one right way to do it. And, while I think the education system fails so many of us (something something to make us easier to control something something), I also think that there are tons of resources to help us learn without the need for an official "teacher". So, instead of pessimistically saying is it "dead" (especially on someone's textual analysis post, like... are you saying I prove it's dead becuase I don't have media literacy? are you agreeing with me and therefore proving yourself wrong? do I not count for some reason? i don't think I get it), engage in discourse about media that you love. And I mean actual discourse, not just fighting on social media about whether or not everyone should "like" your favorite character. Ask yourself "what is the effect of this rhetorical device in the text?" "is the text trying to make me like or not like this character? is it working, why or why not," (do not ask "why did the author do this?" because that is not relevant nor are you a mind reader). Take free online Literature classes from colleges that help you learn how to analyze. Invite others to do it with you. Join or start a book club. Engage in various types of media, not just YA, fantasy, fiction, etc. Consider kindly rebutting or offering a counter point to other people's interpretations, bringing actual textual evidence to back up your points. Use Google Scholar to access free scholarly articles to see academic prospectives on various medias that are not just from social media or blogs. Your local library may even have subscriptions to paid sights like JSTOR or collections of essays that would let you access articles that are otherwise behind a paywall. All of these things can help improve your own media literacy and, in turn, will help improve the media literacy of the people around you.

Secondly, the point of my other post was NOT that Neil is an unreliable narrator. I've seen a lot of people make this claim so I wanted to chime in. Unreliable narrators are marked by a few characteristics, some of which are exaggeration, detachment from reality, naivety, and deception of the reader. I don't believe Neil falls into any of these categories. I would be open to arguments that claim he does, but it would be hard to sway me because I can't find any textual evidence to support it. This is an important distinction to me because the larger claim I make in that post is that ALL narration, 1st person, 3rd person, omniscient, limited, etc is biased- all of it. It is CRUCIAL as readers to identify a narrators biases and consider the text through that lens. If you aren't practicing doing that (or only doing it when the narrator is "unreliable") you can easily fall into the trap of saying "well Neil says Kevin is a coward so he is", which is obviously an issue in the grand scheme of textual analysis. However, you can also easily fall into the trap of saying "Neil is an unreliable narrator because he is wrong about things/lies to people/has trauma so you can't trust him". I believe that Neil tells us as the reader the truth in his narration almost 100% of the time, Neil just lies to the other characters 24/7. So, as readers we should take what he says in his internal monologue at face value but question the motives behind his dialogue with other characters.

Anyway, that was a long winded, probably boring monologue about critical textual analysis. I devote maybe 16 out of my 18 waking hours to thinking about this, so thanks for hanging in there to read it all. I just care so deeply that we as a culture continue to grow these skills without shaming those who haven't had the same opportunities to learn how to do it or making the act of learning how to feel hopeless or doomed.

[edenfenixblogs]

"Night" is Free if You're an Audible Subscriber

A lot of people's only experience with learning about the Holocaust is Anne Frank's Diary or works of fiction.

Anyone speaking about i/p right now NEEDS to read this first person account of life in a concentration camp.

There is a right way and a wrong way to read this book.

The right way: Sit with the uncomfortable feeling that non-Jewish people did this to Jews. Not just Germans and not just Nazis. The European leaders who aligned with Hitler and fought with him did this. The Russians who distributed and popularized the antisemitic conspiracy theories which informed much of Europe's Jew hatred at the time did this. The neighbors who sat back and watched as government officials carted off people they knew and saw every day or shot them in the streets and buried them in mass graves. The ones who convinced themselves they were good people simply because they didn't pull the trigger or operate a gas chamber. The citizens of nations of the Allied powers who turned away Jewish refugees from Europe. The Nazi sympathizers in the US. The vast ,expansive hatred against Jews that prevented anyone from intervening on our behalf.

Sit with the fact that nobody intervened to protect Jews, ever. The Allied powers intervened to stop German expansionism, not to protect Jews. They did not fight in WWII to protect Jews. That any Jews survived at all is a miracle. The fact that the camps were liberated at all is a miracle. Because it wasn't a goal. It wasn't something that people were fighting to achieve. That's what people don't seem to understand.

Killing Jews WASN'T the thing that the Allied powers had a problem with.

Plenty of Americans and Europeans from Allied nations thought it sure was a shame that Hitler was so aggressively expansionist, because he had some great ideas about how to kill all those Jews.

And unless you're Jewish, there is the extremely uncomfortable but likely chance that someone you loved was pretty OK with killing my family.

Or, at the very least, that someone killing my family was not something they had the emotional capacity or willingness to engage with. Think about what that does to my trust for YOU. And if you don't think that someone you loved passed on that apathy and antisemitism to you, then you're naive.

The only correct way for a non-Jew to read this book is to sit with who they are as people and think about how they treat Jews and try to empathize with how this indescribable tragedy affected and continues to affect Jews worldwide.

If you have never read this book, I want you to think long and hard about how absolutely terrifying it is for Jewish people that, I, a Jewish woman, have to BEG non-Jews to read it. Because your education system failed you. And because Jews are afraid that YOUR BEHAVIOR WILL DO THIS TO US AGAIN.

The wrong way: Making this true memoir about living through an industrialized genocide about ANYTHING other than antisemitism and antisemitic apathy. You don't get to use it to draw parallels to other atrocities or wars or people. At least not during/while processing your first reading of this book. Why? Because until you sit with your own internalized antisemitism, where and who it came from, and are willing to confront your own hate toward us, then you are missing the point. The point is that people can convince themselves they are good and that they care about their fellow humans and they can have empathy for everyone except Jews. Sure, they might think it's sad that bad things keep happening to Jews. But it never really seems to be the priority, does it? It never seems to be a pressing enough issue to be worth addressing. There's always something more important happening.

That's antisemitic thinking too. You do, actually, need to prioritize dismantling your antisemitism in order to, you know, dismantle it. Just because you don't sit around daydreaming about Hitler doesn't mean you're not antisemitism. Ignoring us is part of your antisemitism--one of the most damaging and intrinsic parts of antisemitism actually. The Holocaust did not happen because most people hated Jew enough to kill us. The Holocaust happened because a bunch of people didn't care enough Jews to stop the people who DID want to harm us.

If you can't think of the last time you tried to unlearn something antisemitic within yourself, then people like you are why the Holocaust happened. If you have had to tune out Jewish pain because it feels like a "distraction," then people like you are why the Holocaust happened. If your reaction to reading this is to feel some kind of righteous anger that I've called you a bad person because you have proof you care about other people, then you are the kind of person who allowed the Holocaust to happen. And you're also wrong.

Because I'm not calling you a bad person. I'm calling you a flawed person who has the ability to fix a flaw that has the potential to harm others. I'm not asking you to care about other, non-Jewish, people. And I'm not asking you to STOP caring about the non-Jewish people you care about.

What I am saying is that claiming that you care about Jewish people is not the same as actually caring about us.

I'm asking you to sit and read this book and to remember that it is about JEWISH PAIN and a JEWISH TRAGEDY that happened to JEWISH PEOPLE. You need to actually devote time to caring about Jewish people, because society never taught you how to do that, and it has no infrastructure built to help you do that. Because antisemitism is baked into the infrastructure itself. Take the time. Read the book. Let Jewish pain be about Jewish people. Let us own our own tragedy. Do not take it from us to apply to other situations. ESPECIALLY not when the actual original situation was something that nobody cared about enough to prevent.

Understand this: If you're not Jewish, there is no way I can explain to you how painful it is to watch people be so invested in likening every terrible thing that happens to any other group of people to the Holocaust, when those same people never actually first tried caring about the Holocaust and the people it actually happened to.

[maxdibert]

Don't you think it would make sense for muggleborns to be oppressed within the economic system whem they are already socially judged at minimum? So many people misunderstand muggles and it is clear that prejudice against muggleborns existed for many many years. Bigotry like that definitely inflitrates into the economy and social sphere of the wizarding world. Especially when they work so hard to hide themselves from muggles. That's why it is obvious to me that the death eaters and their ideology was fascist. They clearly wanted Voldemort on top and the muggleborns killed or enslaved in some way.

There is no evidence of it. And this is Rowling's fault because, while she may not be a Tory, she belongs to the European centrist social democracy, and culturally, this type of mindset generally supports public healthcare but fails to grasp the fundamental structures behind power dynamics and issues of class, race, or gender. It’s a conservative perspective that scratches the surface but doesn’t dig into the root of the problem. That’s why all her attempts, without exception, to create analogies between her world and real-world political issues fail miserably and are unsustainable.

For example, Rowling tries to use the concept of Muggle-borns as a parallel to racism, but it falls flat because there’s no economic or social structure in the wizarding world that treats Muggle-borns as possessions or commodities for trade, as historically happened with racialized people. Nor is there a colonialist precedent where wizards destroyed Muggle culture to impose their own. Ironically, it’s the other way around: wizards have hidden from Muggles, and wizards are the minority, with a much smaller population. The main issue wizards have with Muggle-borns is that they "taint their purity," meaning their culture.

The problem people like Lucius Malfoy have with Muggle-borns is that their pure-blood culture is based on medieval precepts, and the fact that for every pure-blood wizard, there are ten Muggle-borns threatens the foundation of that culture.

Racism is also supported by the inability of racialized people, historically, to be recognized as political subjects—that is, as mere human beings. Even after the end of the Ancien Régime and the introduction of new democratic systems based on censitary suffrage, a destitute, dying leper still had more rights and opportunities than racialized people. The leper was considered a person, while others were not—they were "properties" of the colony, even if not enslaved. They were conquests, possessions.

This dynamic doesn’t exist in the wizarding world. There is no indication that Muggle-borns were stripped of their humanity until the rise of supremacist ideas in the 20th century—absolutely none. They always had magical "citizenship," just like any other wizard. They always had access to magical education and positions in the wizarding society. The comparison to racism is absurd because, despite the strides racialized people have made to gain recognition as political subjects, they continued to lack basic civil rights. Again, this doesn’t happen in the wizarding world. In the 1970s, Muggle-borns feared the rise of Voldemort's supremacism, but there’s no evidence that this was an issue before then. Of course, many pure-blood families might have held prejudices, but that never stopped Muggle-borns from being considered wizards or having access to the same resources as any other wizard. It cannot, under any circumstances, be considered racism because it lacks the social, cultural, and economic structures that define racism.

The same issue arises with the concept of fascism in the wizarding world: it suffers from a severe lack of clear political and economic framework.

Fascism aims for total control over all aspects of human life, including the economy, education, and cultural values. Its goal is the creation of a totalitarian state that subsumes all individual freedoms under the collective will of the party and its leader. The Death Eaters do not seek a functional totalitarian state. They don’t seem interested in creating institutions to perpetuate their belief system beyond violence and terror. Instead, their structure resembles a mafia-like clique led by Voldemort. They are more akin to a cult with terrorist undertones than anything else—a gang of wealthy individuals angry about changes threatening their way of life, but still a minority. Violent, yes, but a minority, much like any nationalist splinter group that resorts to car bombs and violence.

The Death Eaters’ obsession with "blood purity" has a more feudal or aristocratic backdrop than a fascist one. It’s rooted in the preservation of ancient lineages and inherited privileges rather than a nationalist or expansionist project typical of fascism. Fascism, while racist, had modernist goals, such as promoting a "superior race" in the context of a national and global project. The Death Eaters, in contrast, are fundamentally reactionary, intent on maintaining archaic privileges against the tide of change in the wizarding world.

Fascism relies on the massive mobilization of the population, using propaganda to build a popular movement around a charismatic leader. Hitler and Mussolini, for example, built mass movements that transformed their societies. In Francoist Spain (I’m Spanish, and here we know a thing or two about fascism), a huge proportion of the population not only supported his coup and joined his ranks during the Civil War but also provided massive support during the dictatorship, which is why it lasted 40 years. The same applies to other 20th-century dictatorships like those of Videla or Pinochet: they had considerable popular support, not just from the economic elites but from significant portions of the general populace.

As far as we know in Harry Potter, Voldemort’s support comes only from the pure-blood elites and a few half-bloods, who are a tiny minority in that society. In fact, the pure-blood families’ main issue is that they are going extinct. Voldemort is not a charismatic leader mobilizing the masses. His power stems from fear, subjugation, and manipulation of a small group of followers. Unlike major 20th-century fascist leaders, he does not lead a populist movement. Fear tactics may work in an established fascist dictatorship, but no significant European fascist leader in the 20th century rose to power that way. Hitler won elections, Mussolini had significant societal support, and Franco had half the country on his side throughout the dictatorship. The terror came after the populist wave that brought them to power.

Then there's the fact that fascism, while deeply problematic, possesses an ideological complexity that combines cultural, social, and political ideas. Rowling simplifies the comparison by reducing the Death Eaters to one-dimensional villains driven solely by hatred. Those who voted for Hitler weren’t motivated solely by hatred; Hitler had a political program. He knew how to gather, distill, and synthesize the frustrations of a people morally and economically wounded by World War I. He understood the concerns of his people and used them to craft his rhetoric. Hitler had an entire team actively working on creating a narrative that didn’t just appease the elites but sought to convince the broader population, to tell them what they wanted to hear, to charm and deceive them into siding with him.

Voldemort never does this at any point. Voldemort is just a stereotypical ultimate villain, backed by stereotypical bad guys, and that’s it—there’s nothing more to it. He doesn’t draw on any of the strategies characteristic of fascism or traditional dictators. He’s simply an arch-villain, full stop. In Rowling’s work, the Death Eaters have no political program beyond their loyalty to Voldemort and their hatred of “mudbloods” and Muggles. This reduces the depth of the narrative and makes the comparison to fascism superficial.

You can’t claim that half of Germany voted for Hitler purely because of supremacism, because that’s simply not true. Similarly, people didn’t support Mussolini for that reason. And even less so Franco’s fascism, which never needed to lean on anti-Semitic rhetoric and discarded the “communist monster” narrative long before the Cold War became a pressing issue. These leaders got to where they were because they knew how to win over the people, and the discourses they employed were pure cheap populism, appealing to popular sentimentality about issues that, conveniently, affected them directly: the economic crisis, jobs, the threat of powerful superstates seeking to steal their identity, the economic enemy, and so on.

I’m sorry, but Rowling’s political understanding is rubbish, and it’s painfully evident in her work.

[smolerthanthediagram]

Just saw a post about how studies path is different for everyone and it reminded me of how I loved the Good Will Hunting reference in Community and how it shows some interesting anti ellitist views about career choices and social class

Im adding a link of the scene in question for context but for those who can't watch it, in s1 ep24 there are some math students struggling to resolve a puzzle on a green board. Then they are gone and Troy approaches, takes a chalk, stares at the board, ans just goes away with the chalk lol, before stopping at the water machine to drink, but sees it's not working, so he then proceeds to repair it like he has been doing this his whole life. Then he leaves and two plumbers, who saw the scene, come to talk to him, too late.

First the gag is really funny, like textbook setup payoff joke, but with a double payoff because the first one is that Troy is not good at logic so it shouldnt be a surprise he doesn't resolve the puzzle. But because we all know good will hunting we are still expecting it. But this would have been unsatisfying/unfinished if Troy would have resolved nothing at all, and so instead he repairs the pipes of the water machine, and this is how we get to see his actual gift : repairing stuff.

Troy in this gag is a mirror of Will : just like him, he is in a life path that can't make him discover and exploit his true potential ; like him his speciality is almost a gift, something he has intuitively, and that he is always good at, and can get him to prestigious places (Troy later learns he is the chosen one to plumbing school AND AC repair school, and even becomes the Messiah of the latter and saves someone's life and restores justice with his gift - s3 ep 22). But on the surface, Troy has an opposite path from will : while Will starts as a janitor and ends up as a student, Troy does the opposite: he starts as a student and becomes a worker of manual labour, something that, in our world, is seen as less valuable, and a downgrade from his former status. But not in Greendale. Here the ac repair school is like this masonic organisation that controls Greendale's budget and by doing so holds the actual power, because they are the only ones who can actually guarantee their students a job at the end of their cursus.

And while it sounds crazy, it is not far from the truth. Speaking for myself, I tried (and failed) a master degree in human sciences only to find out I wouldn't have been sure to find a job with it anyways because long studies are not valuable anymore, whereas almost all the people I know who did short studies and more manual labor are in a more stable situation than me. I also have ADHD, and I'm almost sure Troy has as well which explains in part the struggling in this capitalist élitiste system. While classes give Troy a hard time to focus or study, repairing is something Troy is actually good at, and the series explains it by making a parallel with air conditioning and people, because "the true repairman will repair men" (s3 ep 22). Troy seems to actually use his high emotional intelligence (yet again something seen as less valuable than logic etc) to repair stuff because he know how things and people work. It doesn't matter if he doesn't have extended knowledge about everything because he is best at focusing on what's just before him and between his hands. This way community shows another look on manual labor and it's actual value, because let's not forget that without it the whole society litteraly falls appart.

PS : just a reminder that I know that choosing a job is very often not motivated by gift or passion because capitalism and so the ones in power need poor people who have nothing to lose to do the physical, hurting labor while the rich get to choose. This post was just taking about these jobs are seen as inferior because they are mostly done by people with low education, but that doesn't mean these jobs don't require actual skills and knowledge, on the contrary. Just wanted to clarify a bit

[sharpth1ng]

"chatgpt writing is bad because you can tell when it's chatgpt writing because chatgpt writing is bad". in reality the competent kids are using chatgpt well and the incompetent kids are using chatgpt poorly... like with any other tool.

It's not just like other tools. Calculators and computers and other kinds of automation don't require you to steal the hard work of other people who deserve recognition and compensation. I dont know why I have to keep reminding people of this.

It also uses an exorbitant amount of energy and water during an environmental crisis and it's been linked to declining cognitive skills. The competent kids are becoming less competent by using it and they're fucked when we require in-class essays.

Specifically, it can enhance your writing output and confidence but it decreases creativity, originality, critical thinking, reading comprehension, and makes you prone to data bias. Remember, AI privileges the most common answers, which are often out of date and wrong when it comes to scientific and sociological data. This results in reproduction of racism and sexist ideas, because guess whats common on the internet? Racism and sexism!

Heres a source (its a meta-analysis, so it aggregates data from a collection of studies. This means it has better statistical power than any single study, which could have been biased in a number of ways. Meta analysis= more data points, more data points= higher accuracy).

This study also considers positives of AI by the way, as noted it can increase writing efficiency but the downsides and ethical issues don't make that worthwhile in my opinion. We can and should enhance writing and confidence in other ways.

Heres another source:

The issue here is that if you rely on AI consistently, certain skills start to atrophy. So what happens when you can't use it?

Im not completely against all AI, there is legitimate possibility for ethical usage when its trained on paid for data sets and used for specific purpose. Ive seen good evidence for use in medical fields, and for enhancing language learning in certain ways. If we can find a way to reduce the energy and water consumption then cool.

But when you write essays with chatgpt you're just robbing yourself an opportunity to exercise valuable cognitive muscles and you're also robbing millions of people of the fruit of their own intellectual and creative property. Also like, on a purely aesthetic level it has such boring prose, it makes you sound exactly like everyone else and I actually appreciate a distinctive voice in a piece of writing.

It also often fails to cite ideas that belong to other people, which can get you an academic violation for plagiarism even if your writing isn't identified as AI. And by the way, AI detection software is only going to keep getting better in tandem with AI.

All that said it really doesn't matter to me how good it gets at faking human or how good people get at using it, I'm never going to support it because again, it requires mass scale intellectual theft and (at least currently) it involves an unnecessary energy expenditure. Like it's really not that complicated.

At the end of the day I would much rather know that I did my work. I feel pride in my writing because I know I chose every word, and because integrity matters to me.

This is the last post I'm making about this. If you send me another ask I'll block you and delete it. This space is meant to be fun for me and I don't want to engage in more bullshit discourse here.

[coyotetatertot]

Promotional for Tate's company in my interp of A Better World AU.

FULL TEXT BENEATH THE CUT‼️‼️

God, I love exploring what he can do if he hadn't suffered through his father abandoning them and then YEARS of caretaker burnout as he tried in vain to heal his dad. What if he hadn't learned to fear his intellect and skill. What if Appalachia hadn't been cut out of him by being raised in the Bay Area. What if his abilities and cultural identity were both nurtured and encouraged by loving parents and a strong educational support system. What then. 👁️

I think he definitely still has his issues, because public figures often do lol. Fame causes so many problems. But fuck if I don't wanna let this lil scruffy genius out of his mental cage of repression, burnout, and depression. I think he's wild, enthusiastic, and has so much heart and spirit underneath all those layers of bullshit. 30 years of suffering and he is in his 30s, the divergence of the AU puts him on a radically different path from childhood and that makes him a TOTALLY new person.

On the highest peaks in the world, the strongest tethers aren't your rope, but the emotional ties which unite your climbing team and keep you connected to those waiting for you back home. Whether it's by blood or by choice, Tater Higgs McGucket understands the importance of family. Son of revolutionary inventor and co-founder of the Institute of Oddology Fiddleford Hadron McGucket, Tate describes his father as his closest friend, collaborator, and mentor. In collaboration with family friend and other co-founder of the Institute Stanford ("Ford") Pines, the three first designed their renowned supplemental oxygen delivery system after an expedition studying anomalies in the Himalayas.

"Our investigation took us to Camp 1 of Manaslu," Tate described in an exclusive interview with Mountaineering Monthly last week, "And I was shocked by the amount of traffic. This was some of the roughest terrain on the planet, but we saw more people out there than on some of my hiking trips back home in Oregon. . . Ford was our interpreter, and after talking with the locals, we realized that there were all these companies selling tickets to the top — with sherpas puttin' themselves on the line just to ferry tourists to the summit."

The influx of inexperienced climbers has had disastrous consequences, as Tate witnessed firsthand. "A lot of these people, they're physically and mentally capable of makin' that kinda climb, but maybe they don't follow best practice. You can summit without any oxygen, if ya stop and acclimatize along the way. But that takes a while, so it can be really temptin' to ignore your body and throw an oxygen bandaid at the problem. But then you're puttin' yourself in an emergency situation if it fails. While we were there, one of those climbers ran out, and a sherpa had to run more oxygen up there. I told him there was a storm a-comin', but he went up anyway. And we ended up losin' 'em both."

Tate's growing twang was underscored by a nervous bouncing of his leg, and he took a moment to collect himself before resuming the interview.

"Dad and I had a look at these open circuit breathing apparatuses. While they were reliable, we saw they were plum wasteful. Knew we could make somethin' better. There's a growin' culture of risk-takin' 'round them mountains. And maybe we cain't stop the industry that's causin' these problems, but we can at least make it safer for them climbers. 'Cuz at the end of the day, regardless of what ya think about these people? With an accident like that, there’s people left behind that're a-hurtin' somethin' fierce. Partners, friends, kids without parents. I mean, just the thought of losin' my dad like that is enough to break my heart — but that's reality, for both the families of that climber and the sherpa who died tryin' to save him. . . Naw, I reckon we can do better."

That was how the youngest McGucket, who had become a household name in the 1990s for his work in designing personal computers with his father's company, first ventured into the world of alpinism. But what he hadn't expected was to fall in love during the process.

"I always needed nature," he explained, "I get overstimulated awfully easy, and so I go out there to clear my head. Been hikin' and fishin' since I was a kid. . . And so, after workin' with climbers to test this equipment — I saw a lot of them eight-thousanders up close, right? And one day, I just knew I had to see it from the top."

But having become familiar with the dangers involved, Tate knew that preparing himself for such a climb would be no easy task.

Luckily, he found a trainer in Ford's twin brother, Stanley Pines.

“Stanley is a stand-up guy. Real old school. Throws a hell of a punch, catches a hell of a catfish.” Tate said of his mentor, “He’s a fighter. So I knew I needed him, because all it takes is one slip up or act of god for these expeditions to turn life-or-death. And he’s been great. Neither of us knew much about rock climbin’ or mountaineering before all this. But we’ve learned together. And having summited a few eight-thousanders now, I can tell ya, I wouldn’t be here without his help.”

Also aiding in his expeditions were his prototype real-time weather and vital monitoring systems, which have since become standard issue in all McGucket brand protective wear. But Tate is most proud of his high-frequency beacon system, which allows climbers to communicate with their partners and first responders — even from inside perilous crevasses.

"The danger of avalanche or serac collapse is real. There are times when your life just ain’t in your own hands. Our systems allow climbers to communicate when they’re entering or exiting a perilous area, and can send out an SOS. They’re also constantly pinging, so in the event somethin’ does happen, they’ll help your climbing partners or first responders find you.”

But high altitudes aren’t the only place you’ll find the twin peaks of McGucket Mountaineering. Tate’s inventions have seen heavy use by first responders of all stripes, from firefighters to wilderness search and rescue — and he has recently signed a contract to manufacture respirators for medical use.

"At the end of the day, it’s all about making it home safely.” Tate concluded, “You gotta prioritize what matters most. You can do incredible things in this world, but none of it matters if you can’t share them with the people who love you.”