#Information System Control

[bixels]

As cameras becomes more normalized (Sarah Bernhardt encouraging it, grifters on the rise, young artists using it), I wanna express how I will never turn to it because it fundamentally bores me to my core. There is no reason for me to want to use cameras because I will never want to give up my autonomy in creating art. I never want to become reliant on an inhuman object for expression, least of all if that object is created and controlled by manufacturing companies. I paint not because I want a painting but because I love the process of painting. So even in a future where everyone’s accepted it, I’m never gonna sway on this.

if i have to explain to you that using a camera to take a picture is not the same as using generative ai to generate an image then you are a fucking moron.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The majority of censorship is self-censorship

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT in SAN DIEGO (Feb 22, Mysterious Galaxy). After that, it's LA (Saturday night, with Adam Conover), Seattle (Monday, with Neal Stephenson), then Portland, Phoenix and more!

I know a lot of polymaths, but Ada Palmer takes the cake: brilliant science fiction writer, brilliant historian, brilliant librettist, brilliant singer, and then some:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/10/monopoly-begets-monopoly/#terra-ignota

Palmer is a friend and a colleague. In 2018, she, Adrian Johns and I collaborated on "Censorship, Information Control, & Information Revolutions from Printing Press to Internet," a series of grad seminars at the U Chicago History department (where Ada is a tenured prof, specializing in the Inquisition and Renaissance forbidden knowledge):

https://ifk.uchicago.edu/research/faculty-fellow-projects/censorship-information-control-information-revolutions-from-printing-press/

The project had its origins in a party game that Ada and I used to play at SF conventions: Ada would describe a way that the Inquisitions' censors attacked the printing press, and I'd find an extremely parallel maneuver from governments, the entertainment industry or other entities from the much more recent history of internet censorship battles.

With the seminars, we took it to the next level. Each 3h long session featured a roster of speakers from many disciplines, explaining everything from how encryption works to how white nationalists who were radicalized in Vietnam formed an armored-car robbery gang to finance modems and Apple ][+s to link up neo-Nazis across the USA.

We borrowed the structure of these sessions from science fiction conventions, home to a very specific kind of panel that doesn't always work, but when it does, it's fantastic. It was a natural choice: after all, Ada and I know each other through science fiction.

Even if you're not an sf person, you've probably heard of the Hugo Awards, the most prestigious awards in the field, voted on each year by attendees of the annual World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon). And even if you're not an sf fan, you might have heard about a scandal involving the Hugo Awards, which were held last year in China, a first:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/science-fiction-authors-excluded-hugo-awards-china-rcna139134

A little background: each year's Worldcon is run by a committee of volunteers. These volunteers put together bids to host the Worldcon, and canvass Worldcon attendees to vote in favor of their bid. For many years, a group of Chinese fans attempted to field a successful bid to host a Worldcon, and, eventually, they won.

At the time, there were many concerns: about traveling to a country with a poor human rights record and a reputation for censorship, and about the logistics of customary Worldcon attendees getting visas. During this debate, many international fans pointed to the poor human rights record in the USA (which has hosted the vast majority of Worldcons since their inception), and the absolute ghastly rigmarole the US government subjects many foreign visitors to when they seek visas to come to the US for conventions.

Whatever side of this debate you came down on, it couldn't be denied that the Chinese Worldcon rang a lot of alarm-bells. Communications were spotty, and then the con was unceremoniously rescheduled for months after the original scheduled date, without any good explanation. Rumors swirled of Chinese petty officials muscling their way into the con's administration.

But the real alarm bells started clanging after the Hugo Award ceremony. Normally, after the Hugos are given out, attendees are given paper handouts tallying the nominations and votes, and those numbers are also simultaneously published online. Technically, the Hugo committee has a grace period of some weeks before this data must be published, but at every Worldcon I've attended over the past 30+ years, I left the Hugos with a data-sheet in my hand.

Then, in early December, at the very last moment, the Hugo committee released its data – and all hell broke loose. Numerous, acclaimed works had been unilaterally "disqualified" from the ballot. Many of these were written by writers from the Chinese diaspora, but some works – like an episode of Neil Gaiman's Sandman – were seemingly unconnected to any national considerations.

Readers and writers erupted in outrage, demanding to know what had happened. The Hugo administrators – Americans and Canadians who'd volunteered in those roles for many years and were widely viewed as being members in good standing of the community – were either silent or responded with rude and insulting remarks. One thing they didn't do was explain themselves.

The absence of facts left a void that rumors and speculation rushed in to fill. Stories of Chinese official censorship swirled online, and along with them, a kind of I-told-you-so: China should never have been home to a Worldcon, the country's authoritarian national politics are fundamentally incompatible with a literary festival.

As the outrage mounted and the scandal breached from the confines of science fiction fans and writers to the wider world, more details kept emerging. A damning set of internal leaks revealed that it was those long-serving American and Canadian volunteers who decided to censor the ballot. They did so out of a vague sense that the Chinese state would visit some unspecified sanction on the con if politically unpalatable works appeared on the Hugo ballot. Incredibly, they even compiled clumsy dossiers on nominees, disqualifying one nominee out of a mistaken belief that he had once visited Tibet (it was actually Nepal).

There's no evidence that the Chinese state asked these people to do this. Likewise, it wasn't pressure from the Chinese state that caused them to throw out hundreds of ballots cast by Chinese fans, whom they believed were voting for a "slate" of works (it's not clear if this is the case, but slate voting is permitted under Hugo rules).

All this has raised many questions about the future of the Hugo Awards, and the status of the awards that were given in China. There's widespread concern that Chinese fans involved with the con may face state retaliation due to the negative press that these shenanigans stirred up.

But there's also a lot of questions about censorship, and the nature of both state and private censorship, and the relationship between the two. These are questions that Ada is extremely well-poised to answer; indeed, they're the subject of her book-in-progress, entitled Why We Censor: from the Inquisition to the Internet.

In a magisterial essay for Reactor, Palmer stakes out her central thesis: "The majority of censorship is self-censorship, but the majority of self-censorship is intentionally cultivated by an outside power":

https://reactormag.com/tools-for-thinking-about-censorship/

States – even very powerful states – that wish to censor lack the resources to accomplish totalizing censorship of the sort depicted in Nineteen Eighty-Four. They can't go from house to house, searching every nook and cranny for copies of forbidden literature. The only way to kill an idea is to stop people from expressing it in the first place. Convincing people to censor themselves is, "dollar for dollar and man-hour for man-hour, much cheaper and more impactful than anything else a censorious regime can do."

Ada invokes examples modern and ancient, including from her own area of specialty, the Inquisition and its treatment of Gailileo. The Inquistions didn't set out to silence Galileo. If that had been its objective, it could have just assassinated him. This was cheap, easy and reliable! Instead, the Inquisition persecuted Galileo, in a very high-profile manner, making him and his ideas far more famous.

But this isn't some early example of Inquisitorial Streisand Effect. The point of persecuting Galileo was to convince Descartes to self-censor, which he did. He took his manuscript back from the publisher and cut the sections the Inquisition was likely to find offensive. It wasn't just Descartes: "thousands of other major thinkers of the time wrote differently, spoke differently, chose different projects, and passed different ideas on to the next century because they self-censored after the Galileo trial."

This is direct self-censorship, where people are frightened into silencing themselves. But there's another form of censorship, which Ada calls "middlemen censorship." That's when someone other than the government censors a work because they fear what the government would do if they didn't. Think of Scholastic's cowardly decision to pull inclusive, LGBTQ books out of its book fair selections even though no one had ordered them to do so:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/06/books/scholastic-book-racism-maggie-tokuda-hall.html

This is a form of censorship outsourcing, and it "multiplies the manpower of a censorship system by the number of individuals within its power." The censoring body doesn't need to hire people to search everyone's houses for offensive books – it can frighten editors, publishers, distributors, booksellers and librarians into suppressing the books in the first place.

This outsourcing blurs the line between state and private surveillance. Think about comics. After a series of high-profile Congressional hearings about the supposed danger of comics to impressionable young minds, the comics industry undertook a regime of self-censorship, through which the private Comics Code Authority would vet comings for "dangerous" content before allowing its seal of approval to appear on the comics' covers. Distributors and retailers refused to carry books without a CCA stamp, so publishers refused to publish books unless they could get a CCA stamp.

The CCA was unaccountable, capricious – and racist. By the 60s and 70s, it became clear that comic about Black characters were subjected to much tighter scrutiny than comics featuring white heroes. The CCA would reject "a drop of sweat on the forehead of a Black astronaut as 'too graphic' since it 'could be mistaken for blood.'" Every comic that got sent back by the CCA meant long, brutal reworkings by writers and illustrators to get them past the censors.

The US government never censored heroes like Black Panther, but the chain of events that created the CCA "middleman censors" made sure that Black Panther appeared in far fewer comics starring Marvel's most prominent Black character. An analysis of censorship that tries to draw a line between private and public censorship would say that the government played no role in Black Panther's banishment to obscurity – but without Congressional action, Black Panther would never have faced censorship.

This is why attempts to cleanly divide public and private censorship always break down. Many people will tell you that when Twitter or Facebook blocks content they disagree with, that's not censorship, since censorship is government action, and these are private actors. What they mean is that Twitter and Facebook censorship doesn't violate the First Amendment, but it's perfectly possible to infringe on free speech without violating the US Constitution. What's more, if the government fails to prevent monopolization of our speech forums – like social media – and also declines to offer its own public speech forums that are bound to respect the First Amendment, we can end up with government choices that produce an environment in which some ideas are suppressed wherever they might find an audience – all without violating the Constitution:

https://locusmag.com/2020/01/cory-doctorow-inaction-is-a-form-of-action/

The great censorious regimes of the past – the USSR, the Inquisition – left behind vast troves of bureaucratic records, and these records are full of complaints about the censors' lack of resources. They didn't have the manpower, the office space, the money or the power to erase the ideas they were ordered to suppress. As Ada notes, "In the period that Spain’s Inquisition was wildly out of Rome’s control, the Roman Inquisition even printed manuals to guide its Inquisitors on how to bluff their way through pretending they were on top of what Spain was doing!"

Censors have always done – and still do – their work not by wielding power, but by projecting it. Even the most powerful state actors are not powerful enough to truly censor, in the sense of confiscating every work expressing an idea and punishing everyone who creates such a work. Instead, when they rely on self-censorship, both by individuals and by intermediaries. When censors act to block one work and not another, or when they punish one transgressor while another is free to speak, it's tempting to think that they are following some arcane ruleset that defines when enforcement is strict and when it's weak. But the truth is, they censor erratically because they are too weak to censor comprehensively.

Spectacular acts of censorship and punishment are a performance, "to change the way people act and think." Censors "seek out actions that can cause the maximum number of people to notice and feel their presence, with a minimum of expense and manpower."

The censor can only succeed by convincing us to do their work for them. That's why drawing a line between state censorship and private censorship is such a misleading exercise. Censorship is, and always has been, a public-private partnership.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/22/self-censorship/#hugos

[br1ghtestlight]

i dont think the ii contestants are like. incapable of growing and learning abt the world beyond what mephone knows and taught them obviously they could do and be anything. but for the time being the reality is they dont really have any life experience outside of reality tv and the world mephone created for them based off his ALSO very limited experience of the "real world". they never thought to question mephone when he said this is the way the world is this is how it works, this is what exists and what doesn't exist. and why would they?? its like they were raised in a weird reality tv cult except in their situation the cult leader was also raised in a way weirder genocidal abusive cult. like he's trying his best okay!!!!

anyway i dont think mephone intentionally kept any information from them and i dont think he was like..... controlling their brains or what information they were allowed access to. but u never think to question things you dont even know exist outside of a vauge abstract reality tv context

[commodorez]

General Instrument rebranded Digital Computer Controls D-116/17

This clone of a Nova 1200 came out of a supermarket and has a number of 60 channel I/O cards in order to talk to all of the cash registers and scanners and check against the product pricing database. This is an incredibly decked-out system.

Large Scale Systems Museum (LSSM) - mact.io - Pittsburgh, PA

[tommy-h-bff]

joining another fandom is remembering how I fumbled the ball in the previous one and I gotta breathe so deeply through my nose like I won't fuck it up this time

[murderturtles]

British Columbia has a provincial election in a few weeks, and I can already tell many of you are checking out, but bear with me here, cause I think this is kinda funny. Electing a premier is actually pretty important, given how power is configured in Canada’s version of federalism. We don’t have the separation of powers, per se, but rather a system of responsible government where provincial and federal powers work together and keep one another accountable, in theory. That being said, our Constitution has laid out what is under federal jurisdiction and what is provincial. Provincial governments are in charge of pretty crucial things like education and healthcare, so a lot is on the ballot.

The election is on October 19th, with some advanced polling and mail-in options. You cannot vote online.

There are a lot of political parties in BC, but only a few with any real chance. For a while, we had a contest between the BC United Party (who rebranded from the BC Liberals since they were fairly unpopular and trying to distance themselves from the even less popular federal Liberals), the BC NDP (New Democratic Party, the farthest left we have with any kind of clout, and who have been in charge for the past seven years), and the BC Conservative Party (they’re conservative but not cartoonishly so). Note that these are all separate entities from the federal parties of the same name.

With the knowledge that the election is on October 19th, it was a huge and unprecedented surprise on August 28th when Kevin Falcon, the leader of BC United, announced that he was dropping out of the election and backing the Conservatives, which was such a sudden announcement that some of those in his party found out from Twitter. This has never happened so close to election time, so now it’s a contest between the Conservatives and NDP.

The NDP had to scramble to adjust some of their campaign material, and it hasn’t gone smoothly. They have their ads yelling about John Rustad, the Conservative leader, as expected, but they were anticipating a three-way contest. With BC United currently licking whatever is stuck to the bottom of Rustad’s shoe, the NDP has had to shift focus. One of their ads was clearly meant to target the former Liberals, with talks of tons of healthcare cuts in the last twenty years. Now the ad is discussing “Conservative healthcare cuts”, trying to conflate Rustad, who was once part of the Liberals, with those cuts. Sure. But the Conservatives haven’t been in power here since the 1950s. So it’s an interesting tactic.

All this to say that it’s been a bit of a shitshow, despite how tame it seems to our friends down south. We’re having huge issues with housing and grocery prices, the healthcare system is incredibly strained, and Canadians are shockingly hostile to our politicians. Like. All of them. Constantly. There’s quite a bit at stake.

So what do our parties want to do? The NDP have had a hard time trying to fix our economy since the pandemic, and inflation and rising costs of living are stretching everyone pretty thin. Their policies are easing things, but it’s slow, and not everyone is seeing results right away. They want to regulate things, increase the number of healthcare workers, make it harder for corporations to buy residential real estate, and they are! It’s just slow.

The Conservatives want to privatize everything. They think having private healthcare will lower wait times at public clinics and lessen the strain on the system. More likely a lot of primary care providers and nurses will jump ship and go private, but hey, I’m not a politician or economist or lawyer or a fucking conservative, so what do I know.

All this to say that it’s very important to vote if you’re eligible to in BC. Get registered. You legally have time to vote on election day as well. Your employer can’t stop you.

And keep an eye on whatever the fuck is going on federally.

[spicy-vent-central]

If you are a Millennial or Gen Z in America and are genuinely taking the piss out of Gen Alpha for "not being able to read" I just want to let you know (as someone in your age group) that you're turning into your parents in a lot of unhealthy and harmful ways.

Who's fault is it that these kids aren't learning phonics pal? Look around yourself at who is responsible for our government/public schools and who is raising them. Kids are and have always been kids, adults however change drastically over time. You can't blame Boomers for your problems but not accept (at least partial) responsibility for Gen Alpha's problems. These are the children of our generation and it's our responsibility to give them a solid foundation and if we don't do that, we cannot blame them for not having it.

We are all victims of the larger political system and Gen Alpha is already being systemically repressed. They will grow up from birth with the whole sum of human knowledge and access to instant communication in the palms of their hands. This makes them EXTREMELY hard to control from a governmental standpoint. Why do you think we suddenly have this unwarranted, unprecedented and illogical change in how kids are being taught to read? The system is already trying to rob these kids of their power to make change by denying them access to information in the only ways it can. Instead of seeing that for what it is and helping empower the next generation, a lot of you are continuing the trauma cycle of "younger generation bad" and it's really disappointing. I see and hear your struggles, especially millennials. Y'all have been getting blamed for shit since you had no control over since you were kids, let's not do that to the next batch of kids though okay? It's our jobs to build these kids up.

[thatfrenchacademic]

It's kind of annoying to me that so many Americans think that knowing where a particular European country is is the same as knowing where a specific US state is. Like yeah I can't identify Idaho on a map, but I don't think that's comparable to Americans who can't identify Ukraine on a map???

Hi Anon!

I... will assume this is in response to the "can you name all European countries?" game going around ! And I have exactly two (2) thoughts about it:

1.Devil's advocate argument:

I agree with the general sentiment, BUT [pulls out my nerdy academic glasses], a fun thing I have noticed is that instead of

"knowing where a European state is (for USAmericans) = knowing where a US state is (for Europeans)",

what comes up is more often is:

"NOT knowing where a European state is (for USAmericans) = NOT knowing where a US state is (for Europeans)"

Like, this is the type of argument USAmericans pull out only when they fail to identify European state and we point it out. On the other hand, there is not such a strong expectation that I would ACTUALLY know where Idaho is, in my experience. A few times people have assumed I know where some State is, I point out I don't, and they go 'oh, yeah, it's in North/East/...". Very rarely has an American that I talked to in person truly, actually been in disbelief that I can't place a US State on a map.

"You don't eve know where Idaho is" comes up only once they have been faced with THEIR inability to place a European State. It feels to me like a cognitive (or just rhetorical? idk, not my field) defensive move, more than an actual expectation that I would even be able to name all US State, let alone place them.

2. They are straight up not taught.

I know the instinct is to point it out and laugh at it because the irony of coming from a regime that lords its superiority over all other countries with a population that cannot, actually pinpoint where the other countries are, is STRONG.

But like.

Whose fault is it that Mark, 20, WY, thinks being able to place Utah is much more important than being able to place Albania. Or even that it is equivalent.

I know it's tempting to tell Mark that he is being a fking idiot, especially if Mark is also an asshole. But sometimes, you just need to take a breath, look at someone who is the predictable result of a shitty system, and remember that you gain nothing by confronting them aggressively like it's solely their fault they turned out like that.

Even when they are an asshole.

And just... walk away. Especially if it's online.

[nerditudes]

"Not a girl."

[ghostisredacted]

i need to learn how to read slower because Holy Fuck

[struggling-to-find-home]

(Before Ray diagnostics test)

Groupmate: Did you study?

Me: I did:)

Groupmate: Great!

Me: For the microbiology practical exam:) We have right after this:)

Groupmate: oh.

Groupmate: Oh.

[quietwingsinthesky]

oh. oh i’m really hoping this is tutorial level poor footing. because this feels. Bad To Play.

[techtuv]

What is ESP, How Does It Work?

ESP is an important electronic safety system that enhances vehicle stability and controllability, especially in low traction situations, by leveraging anti-lock brakes, traction control and yaw stability control through automatic braking and throttle adjustments.

[emsleyanbluejay]

i hate to break this to some of you, but you’re not actually antis

[3t22]

By far the most stupid article I've ever read in my life

[vlovann]

Okay, so this comment section keeps instantly deleting my responses about real life experience with the education system and it’s getting annoying. You cannot truly learn perspective if people who have legitimate points are silenced by a filter.

I AM SCREAMING THIS BECAUSE IT IS IMPORTANT:

IF YOU’RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT IGNORANT PEOPLE USING THE EDUCATION SYSTEM AS A SHIELD FROM LEARNING NEW THINGS, YOU NEED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE NUANCE OF THE SITUATION:

THE US EDUCATION SYSTEM IS A LEGITIMATE EXCUSE. They ARE victims of the system, just like you!

REFUSING TO BREAK THE CYCLE IS NOT.

These are SEPARATE ISSUES that have DIRE, SPIDERWEBBING CONNECTIONS THAT CAN TRAP ANYBODY.

TURN YOUR ANGER TOWARDS THE SYSTEM AND THE CONSERVATIVE PARENTS WHO PERPETUATE IT, you’re WASTING ENERGY ARGUING WITH THESE LOST SOULS ON THE INTERNET.

HERE’S WHY (FROM MY EXPERIENCE AND MY PARTNER’S WHO IS A TEACHER THAT TRIES TO BREAK THE CYCLE):

• EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND EMPATHY ARE NOT CURRICULUM.

- IT’S NOT EVEN A JOB REQUIREMENT FOR THE AUTHORITY FIGURES.

- SCHOOLS WILL ALLOW CHILD ABUSERS TO REMAIN EMPLOYED AND PROMOTE THEM, BUT PUNISH AND FIRE TEACHERS WHO GENUINELY CARE FOR THE WELLBEING AND DEVELOPING MINDS OF CHILDREN. OFTEN PEOPLE WHO ARE PARENTS THEMSELVES, which THIS POINT ALSO APPLIES TO. YOU DONT NEED TO SHED YOUR BIASES AT ALL TO BE IN ANY POSITION OF AUTHORITY. IN FACT, MOST OF THE TIME, PEOPLE ARE TAUGHT TO BE APATHETIC.

• YOU ARE NOT TAUGHT SENSITIVITY BY DEFAULT:

- RACE: IN-DEPTH HISTORY AND THE AWFUL THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN DONE AND ARE STILL HAPPENING, WHAT PEOPLE OF COLOR GO THROUGH ON A DAILY BASIS, GIVING KIDS A SAFE SPACE TO TELL THE CLASS ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCES AND ASK QUESTIONS AND TALK ABOUT IT AMONGST THEMSELVES. WHY CERTAIN THINGS ARE UNACCEPTABLE OR APPROPRIATION, HOW YOU CAN BE A GOOD ALLY AND STAND WITH THEM.

- CULTURES: INDIGENOUS of the WORLD, PAGAN, LITERALLY ANYTHING OTHER THAN CHRISTIANITY. THE AWFUL THINGS CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE TO THEM AND STILL ARE. HOW YOU CAN STAND FOR THEIR RIGHT TO EXIST. AGAIN, GIVING KIDS A SAFE PLACE TO STAND UP AND TALK TO EACH OTHER, ASK QUESTIONS.

THIS IS ON PURPOSE because SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE IS A FUCKING LIE. CHRISTIANS CONTROL INFORMATION, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THE TYRANNICAL RELIGION IS TAUGHT IN SCHOOL OR NOT. I have SEVERAL posts about this topic.

- IDENTITY: QUEER HISTORY INCLUDING ANCIENT HISTORY, LITERALLY THE FACT THAT WW2 ALSO AFFECTED THEM (this isn’t taught even in some Holocaust museums) WHAT IDENTITIES THERE ARE. AGAIN, GIVING KIDS THE SAFE SPACE TO TALK ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCES, ASK QUESTIONS, ETC. IF YOU READ THIS SO FAR, you know the rest.

CLUBS ARE NOT ENOUGH.

- DISABILITY: THE AWFUL THINGS THAT SCIENCE HAS DONE TO PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES, INVISIBLE AND VISIBLE, CREATING A SAFE SPACE FOR TALKING ABOUT EXPERIENCES AND TO EACH OTHER.

THESE SHOULD ALL BE REQUIRED, BUT THEY AREN’T BECAUSE IT DOESN’T FIT THE NARRATIVE OF THE GOVERNMENT AND MOMS OF LIBERTY WOULD HAVE A BITCH FIT ABOUT IT AND SHUT IT DOWN.

• YOU ARE TAUGHT BY DEFAULT:

- NATIONALISM: “Our country is the best country. We did these “bad things” for a good reason. There is no other side of the story because:”

- PROPAGANDA: “Look at the actual bad things these monsters did to deserve this. This country that’s smaller than us was going to kill everyone in our country first. We did this because they did it first, but we did it better. They’re evil, even the civilians that had nothing to do with it.”

- BULLYING IS OKAY IF THE AUTHORITIES AGREE WITH IT, DON’T DO ANYTHING, OR YOU DON’T GET CAUGHT.

- IF YOU FALL BEHIND, WE’RE NOT TO BLAME. YOU ARE JUST LAZY. YOU WILL NEVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING.

- You are brainwashed with what they want you to know and that’s IT.

• THE US EDUCATION SYSTEM IS BUILT LIKE A FACTORY.

- THE GOVERNMENT, SCHOOLS, AND EMPLOYERS ALIKE VIEW ANYBODY OUTSIDE THE WOMB AS A NUMBER. YOU AND THE BRAINWASHED.

- You get up — ass crack of dawn, go to school, sit down for 8 hours. Eventually, you’re not allowed to go outside. You get 30 minutes to eat if you have the lunch money to. You go home and you still have work, taking time away from family or being a kid a.k.a your development and good night’s sleep.

• YOU ARE ONLY ENCOURAGED TO USE YOUR BRAIN IF IT ALIGNS WITH NEUROTYPICAL FUNCTIONALITY AND CONSERVATIVE EXPECTATION.

- Meaning you can only use your brain if you think like they think.

- If you function differently, you’re not human, you cannot speak, you cannot move on. You are either held back or we are not giving you the help and accommodations you need.

• IF YOUR GUARDIANS AT HOME ARE NOT TEACHING YOU CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS, THIS IS A WHOLE OTHER LAYER THAT I CAN DO A SEPARATE POST ABOUT.

- If they are not externally exposing you to different experiences, different cultures and ideologies, or information you wouldn’t be taught in school, you aren’t learning SHIT about life or caring about others.

- And BELIEVE US this is EXTREMELY common.

THE SYSTEM FAILS EVERYONE. CONSERVATIVE PARENTS FAIL THEIR KIDS. THESE ARE THE ONES TO BLAME.

~~~~~

It is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to change the minds of ignorant people. What you CAN do is:

• Use their use of the education system shield to relate to them and see if something can click in their minds that this list of reasons is exactly why they should be looking things up and learning on their own.

OR, if they can’t:

• Disengage

OR

• Provide a resource that they most likely won’t look at and then disengage.

AND

• Exercise your own right to stand up for inclusive education and educators that are actively trying to improve the lives of all kids. Put the frustrations of talking to these people towards protesting against oppressive educational practices, support and get involved at progressive schools, teach your own kids if you have them or if you want to have/adopt them in the future, siblings, any kids you’re around enough how to think critically and dissect the information they are fed in schools and how to stand up for themselves and others. We need it now more than EVER.

If you are not at least doing something to break the cycle and you too are just arguing, then you are no better than them.

~~~~~

P.S: If YOU had cool, progressive schools with a ton of resources, or teachers, GOOD FOR YOU 👏🏻 Just know that, while it absolutely should be, THAT IS NOT STANDARD. Your experience is NOT the majority. That is RARE and they’re probably being different on purpose, cutting corners, teaching you positive or important things such as these against protocol or in spite of, and shielding and taking the brunt of a ton of systemic bullshit for their students. That makes you lucky as hell.

we need to legalise learning for adults