#and if you are someone who considers yourself any form of leftist

[alagaisia]

This is true, and it’s especially true for the people that I think most is us probably encounter in our own social circles and daily lives. But I don’t think it’s true for everybody. Remember how there was that stat showing a spike in google searches for “did Joe Biden drop out” on Election Day?

I think it’s sort of like how you can’t know what you can’t know. If you don’t know that you’re missing information, you can’t go looking to educate yourself on it. And while most of the time when people talk about “living in a bubble” they tend to mean it in a bad faith, paradox of tolerance type of way, I’ve realized lately that it’s a concept that’s absolutely applicable in a lot of ways. Of course we make our assumptions about the world based on the very limited and biased sample size of people we interact with in our daily lives. You can’t talk about the benefits of being able to curate our dashes on tumblr and then say you think the people who interact with the same political posts as you make a representative sample of the American public.

I am someone who tries to be pretty aware of environmental issues in my personal habits. My family isn’t zero-waste, granola, organic everything, but we haven’t used a plastic shopping bag or water bottle since I was in first grade. As I start forming my own adult habits and thinking about having more control over my consumption, I’m identifying ways I could move towards more environmental consciousness. I know that I’m not doing the absolute most I could be doing, and that I think about this more than the people around me, but not by that much, right?

Except I work now for an organization that sends plays on things like proper sorting of recycling to teach elementary students two counties from where I live. The county pays us to bring these programs, because the residents are simply not recycling. I’ve gone along on one or two of the programs and seen kids ten and eleven years old participating in the interactive “help us sort the recycling” activity in the show who were terrible at it. Because it’s just not something their community thinks about. These aren’t rural areas, these aren’t devoid of civilization or waste management infrastructure, this is a suburb 45 minutes from the largest city in our state.

It’s hard for me to wrap my head around it, too, but trump did not win because more people voted for him. He won because record numbers of people did not vote at all. And we can blame that on individual leftists becoming cynical and disillusioned, but something like a third of the country has never voted in any election. There are people who are and always have been disconnected from and disinterested in the government and electoral politics and anything happening in this country.

And it’s wrong! I’m not saying it isn’t. Each of us has a responsibility to our communities, and the civic responsibility of voting and being at least minimally informed on what’s happening in the country is a part of living in a fucking society. It’s disgraceful. But many of those non-voters didn’t consider all of the available information and then choose not to educate themselves and not to vote. It simply didn’t occur to them. Just like the kids I encountered who don’t know how to recycle, a lot of people have grown up in families and communities where electoral politics were somebody else’s business, or for any number of other reasons I can’t begin to guess at, something that just wasn’t a priority. I come from a very politically motivated family, and I’m sure most of you do too. I don’t know anybody who doesn’t vote. I don’t know why each of them didn’t. But there are millions of people who don’t.

These problems have been building since long before 2016, but at the very least that election should have been a wake up call for the democratic party on a national level. What we needed and still need is community and individual level action on a national scale to reach non-voters and educate them on political issues and why this shit does actually affect them and does actually matter. Democrats need to stop folding to random criticism on things like fracking and instead have some fucking backbone, stick to their morals, and work to get votes through education and changing people’s minds and convincing them that these values are worth voting for, rather than changing their policies every other week based on what they think might appease people who are not going to vote for them anyway without a concentrated effort for a societal change of mindset.

Yes, there’s lots of information available, and people do have a responsibility to use that. Obviously there are plenty of people like the ones OP alludes to who are shirking that responsibility due to apathy. But those of us who know all of that know it because we are part of communities that care about accessing and acting based on that information. There are people who don’t know and don’t care and to whom it would never occur to seek that information out, because in their community, it doesn’t matter. And those are the people who I think the democratic party does have a real responsibility to try harder to reach. Politicians also obviously live in a social bubble where everybody cares about politics. But somebody needs to look at the numbers and realize that that’s just not true for the country as a whole. And then they need to do something about it.

I STILL sometimes see people argue that Trump's victory is the fault of Democrats for not being good enough at messaging, and not making it clear enough to Americans all the good Biden was doing.

I knew. Lots of people I know knew. I don't have a secret line to the white house. I'm around average intelligence. I'm not excessively seeking out news, constantly getting news updates. And yet I knew. And so did many others. The information was there for you to get at any time. It found its way to me without my actively seeking it out. Kamala Harris cannot personally come to your house and slap the tiktok out of your hands. You have to take a crumb of responsibility here.

[ganondorf]

With your ass backwards thinking then people are allowed to use others artwork in books, movies, comics, advertising, everything and not cite nor pay the artist for the work used. Anything you dont like is elitism. Lord forbid someone expect you to do something because its respectful toward the original artist

tell me do you really think an individual person showing a tattooist fanart they want permanently inked on their body and getting a tattoo that they're paying for and the tattooist being paid once to emulate that art on another person's body is the same thing as advertisers or other companies using someone else's art without credit or royalties to rake in potentially endless money from it. or do you live in an alternate dimension where people gain revenue whenever someone sees their tattoo

[bonesfool]

kinda pissed off that people who I've never seen talk about rap before are making memes about the kendrick v drake beef (especially all the people comparing it to the fucking Hmbomberguy James Somerton video like tell me you don't know shit about black culture without telling me Jesus Christ), but I'm glad its become a catalyst for the conversation that so many white people on here just do not engage in black art forms

a lot of people have been boiling it down to if you claim to universally not enjoy rap, a genre that is almost universally populated by black artists, producers and record labels you're racist. this is certainly true, especially if you don't treat other genres as monoliths you can write off. (cough cough we all saw those tags on that one post)

But as someone who has a special interest in protest music (usually American protest music specifically) I think that even if you genuinely do not enjoy the sound of rap, if you consider yourself to be an American leftist, and have not made any effort to at least learn the history of rap you're not only racist, you're also uneducated and I would go as far to say not a real leftist. Why? because rap is inherently political: both in the sense that all music is political because all art is political, but also in the sense that rap uniquely political as a black art form

I've seen a lot of people saying "not all rap is about drugs and violence" which is a true statement, but ignores the fact that a lot of rap *is* about drugs and violence. and for a fucking good reason, both of them dominated the urban black experience in the 80s and 90s, and therefore have a disproportionate appearance in black art. Rap was born in American urban centers in the 70s/80s, a time when Reagan and Nixon's policies had completely divested federal support from urban centers, deindustrialization had made growing wealth in black communities suddenly become unsustainable, and racist policing laws had been put in place to funnel black men into drugs and then into the prison industrial complex (read The New Jim Crow if you have not, this post is already too long and if you don't know about the war on drugs im not gonna whitesplain it to you more than I already have).

Point being, it has always sucked to be black in this country, and rap was birthed in a time where uniquely targeted racism was driving much of federal policymaking. It was a time where mainstream politics were directly reactionary to the progress made by civil rights activists in ending Jim Crow and other de jure racism. So much of rap (particularly gangsta rap) was born as a genre of protest music, and much of it continues to be to this day. If you don't have at least passing familiarity with the giants of the genre (I'm not saying you even have to like their music, you just have to know the artists' and songs' significance in American countercultural history) I simply do not trust your knowledge of American leftism or protest movements

All this to say, I want to wholeheartedly recommend the documentary series Hip-Hop Evolution. It's on Netflix and its 16 episodes covering the history of DJing, hip-hop, and rap. It has lots of interviews with prolific and influential producers and rappers, and you can also hear some of their music throughout the series, so its a great place to get a comprehensive view of the genre and maybe see if there are any subgenres to your taste

[demiaroacefrieren]

⭐️About Me⭐️

💚Call me Frieren (not giving out my irl name for privacy reasons)

💚She/They

💚Cis Woman (Although I've been questioning if I'm Nonbinary or not. Still figuring it out)

💚25

💚Demi AroAce

💚ADHD + Autistic + Anxiety

💚Radical Inclusionist/Anti Exclusionist

💚Antishipper/Anti Proship, Anti Comship, and Anti Darkship

💚Leftist

💚Intersectional Feminist

💚Ex Catholic

💚Beginner Satanic Pagan Witch

💚Beginner Tarot Reader

💚Abuse and SA victim

💚Fat

⭐️My Beliefs⭐️

💚Anti Proship Neutral (as in against anyone who claims they're proship "neutral". Anyone who claims are neutral are lowkey proship)

💚Fiction can affect reality

💚Pro Choice and Pro Bodily Autonomy

💚Pro MOGAI

💚Pro Microlables

💚Pro It/Its Pronouns and Neopronouns

💚Against anyone who believes that Its/Its Pronouns and Neopronouns are transphobic (it's also ableist to be against these pronouns as they're created by Neurodivergent and disabled Trans people)

💚Pro Xenogenders

💚Anti Amber Heard/Anti Amber Heard Supporters (Supporting Amber after she admitted to abusing Johnny Depp is TERF rhetoric. TERFs believe that abusive and terrible women should he absolved of their actions because they're women. I'm not a Johnny Depp fan, but using his shitty actions as a way to erase his status as a domestic violence victim is victim shaming. You can acknowledge that Johnny is a terrible person and an abuse victim at the same time.)

💚Men can be victims and suffer under the patriarchy

💚Women can be abusers and benefit from the patriarchy

💚Anti "Kill All Men" (Wishing death to all men and wishing to commit male genocide is eugenics as marginalized men exist.)

💚Against anyone who compares being Trans to blackface (These two things should not be compared to all. It's racist and transphobic to compare the two since Trans people of color exist.)

💚Cancel Culture doesn't exist (it was made up by people who don't want to hold themselves accountable for their shitty actions. There's a difference between calling someone out of their bullshit and going after someone for something so small.)

💚Pro Sex Work

💚Pro Porn/Anti Porn Industry

💚Anti Christianity/Catholicism (and against all denominations of Christianity)

💚Anti TERF/Radfem/MERF/TEHM/SWERF (or any fascists who appropriates feminism with their bigotry)

💚Pro Kink

💚Queer is a political term and identity. Not a slur.

💚The R slur will never be a reclaimable slur

💚Against anyone who calls Autism "Asperger's Syndrome" (it's named after an Austrian doctor who was affiliated with the Nazis and killed Autistic children that didn't fit his standards)

💚Anti Veganism (Veganism is ableist and classist)

💚Anti Antitheism (Antitheism is deeply rooted in white supremacy and is harmful to people in marginalized religions.)

💚Anti Yandere Simulator/Anti Yandere Dev/Against anyone who still plays the game after Yandere Dev got exposed as a groomer

💚Anti Yandere archetype (it's based on harmful stereotypes of people with Borderline Personality Disorder)

💚Anyone who says that women shouldn't wear makeup, shouldn't wear revealing clothing, shouldn't get plastic surgery, and shouldn't become a sex worker (by choice) is anti bodily autonomy

💚Against people who are anti children (people who are against children and say stuff like "fuck them kids" or "I hate kids" probably have some deep-rooted trauma and should consider seeing a therapist. Adults should not be projecting their trauma onto kids. Also, saying you want to hurt any random child you see will end up with you being charged for child endangerment)

💚Against anyone who believes that hitting their children is a form of punishment (hitting your kids for whatever reason is abuse. And this is coming from someone whose been hit by both parents.)

💚Pro Self Shipping (self shipping is okay as long as you're shipping yourself with a character that's close to your age)

💚Against adult self shippers who ship themselves with underage characters

💚Against any fanart/fanfiction that sexualizes underage characters/against any fanart and fanfics that "ages up" underage characters just to sexualize them (sexualizing fictional minors is just as bad as sexualizing real minors. Pedophilia is still the same regardless of whether the minor in question is fictional or not.)

💚Against anyone who ships real life people

💚Anti Real People Fanfiction (making fanfics of real life people is so fucking weird. Stop treating real people like fictional characters.)

💚Against any Autistic person who refers to their Autism as Asperger's Syndrome/Anti Aspie Supremacy (Aspie Supremacists are low support needs Autistic people who believe that they're more superior than high support needs Autistic people and other high support needs disabled people. It's also rooted in white supremacy as well.)

💚Against anyone who still uses terms like "high/low functioning", "special needs", and "mentally challenged".

💚Anti White Supermacy/Neo Nazism

💚Anti Republican/Apolitical/Libertarian/Centrist

💚Anti Autism Speaks and against anyone who supports it

💚Anti Harry Potter/Anti Fantastic Beasts/Anti JK Rowling/Against anyone who still consumes JK's work after she outed herself as a TERF (buying secondhand and fanmade merchandise and reading/producing fanfics is just as bad as you're continuing to give her work relevance and keeping it mainstream even though she's not profiting from anything secondhand and fanmade. This includes any book she wrote under the name Robert Galbraith, who was an Anti LGBTQIA+ conversion therapist.)

💚Hazbin Hotel Critical/Anti Helluva Boss/Vivziepop Critical

💚Pro Mspec labels (I don't fully understand those labels, but I'm not going to use it as an excuse to exclude them from the community.)

💚Against non-Lesbians who think Trans men can't be Lesbians (as a cis non-Lesbian, it's none of my business if a Trans man identified as a Lesbian as long as they're not hurting anyone)

💚Against anyone who ships canon Lesbian characters with male characters

💚Against anyone who ships Gay male characters with female characters

💚Against anyone who ships canon Ace/Aro characters with Allo characters

💚Against anyone who believes that blashwashing is real (blackwashing was created by anti black racists as a way to silence people of color when talking about representation in media)

💚Anti Transmed/Anti Truscum/Anti Gender Critical

💚Pro Self Diagnosis/Anti Fake Claiming

💚Anyone who mocks Joe Biden for his stutter and accuses him of having dementia are ableist (Biden has a speech disorder, which causes his stuttering. I'm not a Biden supporter, but as a disabled person, you're saying that disabled people that they can't hold high positions of power by making fun of the way he speaks.)

💚Anti Harassment

💚Anti Suicide Baiting

💚Anti Fatphobia/Anti Fat Shaming

💚Anti Radqueer

💚Pro Palestine

💚Anti Israel/Anti Zionism

💚Anti Enemies to Lovers trope (and against other toxic relationships tropes)

⭐️Fandoms⭐️

(This will be filled out at one point. I'm just too lazy to do so 🙃)

⭐️Rules⭐️

💚Reblogs have been turned off on my posts to prevent people whom I don't want to interact with. This includes restricting comments on my posts, too, for the same reason. I suffer from anxiety, and it's just easier for me to filter out who I do want or do not want to interact with.

💚Any asks and DMs from people I don't want to interact with will be deleted. If anyone continues to do so, will be blocked.

💚Anyone who I don't want to interact with will be instantly blocked if they tag me in any posts. I'm not gonna waste my time and read your stupid ass post. Also, it will open me up to any form or harassment.

💚Any asks and DMs complaining about my beliefs list will be deleted. I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna argue with people my beliefs. It's not worth my time and mental health.

💚Any asks and DMs about the Amber Heard vs. Johnny Depp situation will be deleted. I don't support either person as they're both terrible people. Also, the situation has been over for more than a year now, and it's basically beating a dead horse. I was simply trying to make a point that you can be a victim of something and be a shitty person at the same time, as well as that person's shitty actions should not be used as a way to erase their victim status. I was trying to make a point that men can be victims, and women can be abusers. Abuse has no gender.

[wild-at-mind]

cn mental health talk, queer community discourse

I don’t have depressive episodes in the sense that some people describe them- they seem to be heavily associated with loss of the ability to take care of yourself physically in today’s discourse about mental health. E.g. not being able to get out of bed, wash and eat. I have experienced that before in my life but the most common kind of depressive episodes I get are periods of extensive self loathing connected to online politics and how I fit into them. During these times my emotions become uncontrollable and very painful to have. I often have conversations with loved ones during these times that could be considered ‘begging for value’. Or maybe begging to be seen as a worthwhile person. I feel like leftist, queer, radical circles filter through my mind in this endless, sick swirl, where you must form your individual identity into the most impressive and perfect it can be. Sometimes it seems like the most radical thing is to not participate in society and to be outside of it (maybe in a trans separatist commune of some kind). Sometimes it seems like the pain and suffering someone has gone through is the most important, with the suffering of oppressed groups almost fetishised in a rather religious way, while those who are in privileged groups must reveal their traumatic experiences to show their experiences of suffering. Sometimes it seems like the most radical is to pick a section of the LGBTQ community to turn on and be cruel to, sometimes ignoring the historical context of sections of that community’s history (sections of the community with longer and more documented historys are at a disadvantage here). Sometimes it seems like your personal sex life is the site of radicalness- whether the sex you have is kinky enough to upset normative society with your queerness, whether you have enough partners (increasing your personal value with more partners= a v radical idea), and the amount you feel comfortable sharing about it will be seen as reflective on your stance on purity politics. In case you can’t tell, absolutely none of that is real. This is just what is going through my mind in a constant loop when I’m having an episode. These episodes can be waited out, and they all end in time, but during them every minute feels like agony. Sometimes I want to crawl out of my skin. But the truth is, it may not be real what my brain does with the input I get, but also these ideas are being hinted at and gestured at often on online radical queer leftist spaces. Sometimes as responses to something else, sometimes just as an idea someone had. Many people are unbothered by any of this, but some are affected. I have seen it said that in today’s world of the internet being the supposed front line of activism (it isn’t, but it can seem like that a lot), people are fighting really hard to be accepted in online communities that may be extremely judgemental and have very harsh social penalties for even slight disagreement. These places aren’t a substitute for close connection with real people who you know, care about and befriend. (IRL is my preference but you can meet people you know like this online too, in a more individual connection.) Becoming a member of a small, local LGBTQ community meetup group in my town has been so good for me, and has changed my life for the better. They accept me, and that’s not something I’ve felt very often (longterm social difficulties going back to childhood, yaay). But just a few minutes in the wrong place online, I start mentally stressing out about whether these people who I care about are radical and disruptive enough to the ‘system’ or whatever, and my carefully built up mental resources fall down and then I’m spiralling. tldr I guess: maybe radical leftist queer people should focus less time on carefully policing each other’s radicalness, both inherent and expressed. It’s cruel and it does hurt people

[uncloseted]

Okay thanks so much for all the education you provided with your response, I know that would have taken ages to write. I actually would say I am pretty well informed of around 80% of it as I tried to change my core beliefs to fit in with blue pill. Just for the record, I keep my political beliefs to myself, don’t act on them and don’t make any choices based of them so nobody is harmed or feels discriminated against by me. Also, you see, my experience with talking to red and blue pill is interesting. When you tell someone who’s left that your not really for transitioning, they (80% of the time) label me terrible things. You did it in your response and said that you think I don’t care about trans peoples lives. Well actually as I stated in my original question I believe in free first class medical care for everyone, and increasing minimum wage. I do care about people’s lives which is why I resonate with blue pill. Just because I don’t believe in transitioning doesn’t mean I don’t care about trans lives. And this is the issue I have with talking with leftists because they lash out and say “your this, your that, because your beliefs don’t align with mine”. Essentially. Whereas quiet right wing, which I semi resonate with, co exist with people with opposing beliefs, and I don’t label them or accuse them of anything. It’s just something I’ve noticed, that left wing people get accusing whereas right wing don’t do that to me when I speak about beliefs that don’t align with theirs. But anyway Thank you for your response :) ! I will continue to support this blog :)

Thanks for your message and for continuing to support this blog! I think there's a lot to talk about here. To answer your question from your first ask, I think if you "keep [your] political beliefs to [yourself], don’t act on them and don’t make any choices based of them so nobody is harmed or feels discriminated against", then politically, you probably would be considered on the left of the political spectrum. In Australia, I think that aligns you with the Labor party, but I'm not Australian so YMMV on that.

I'm not trying to be nasty or "label [you] terrible things" when I say that I personally don't think you really care about trans people's health and wellbeing. That's a personal opinion that I formed based on what you said in your original message, and it was a lead-in to an argument I thought you might find more persuasive. If you can't handle hearing people's opinions of you based on the political views you've shared, maybe talking about politics on the internet isn't for you, and that's okay. But politics shouldn't be dictated by which side is nicer to you. It should be dictated by which side has the most compelling case for their belief system, and which side will improve society the most.

What I'd really like to know, though, and I am genuinely curious, is this. If, as you say you are, you're "pretty well informed" about trans issues, and already knew around 80% of what I said in my post... what makes you believe that trans people are "severely mentally ill" and "shouldn't be allowed to transition to another gender"? I don't think that's what the evidence suggests. As you say, you "believe in free first class medical care for everyone". But free, first class medical care for trans people is transitioning. That's the best course of treatment for gender dysphoria in trans individuals, as agreed upon by the vast majority of medical associations and societies.

Not believing in transitioning is not believing in giving trans people evidence-based, peer-reviewed care. You can't have it both ways here. Either you believe in free first class medical care for everyone, or you believe in free first class medical care for everyone except trans people, or you believe in free first class medical care for everyone, but the entirety of the medical community is misled about the benefits of transitioning for trans individuals. I would genuinely be interested in knowing which of those you resonate with, because I'd like to understand your position better.

And I'm really curious about the answers to the question I asked in my original post as well. How do you know that you are the gender you are? What makes you feel like a man or a woman? What are you afraid will happen if trans people are allowed to medically transition? How are you imagining that will impact your life, and why are you so scared of that impact that you feel like it needs to be banned entirely? Why should transitioning not be allowed, when we allow other adults to make life-changing alterations to their bodies that they might regret down the line? I know it's kind of a lot for me to ask of you, but I really would like to understand where you sit on those questions. I think it would help me to better understand where people are coming from and how to make them feel more at home in liberal or leftist spaces even if they are ambivalent about trans people.

[josiepugblog]

In the vast and muddled conversation about internet discourse and its ineffectiveness, I think we really need to talk more about how bad it is that the concept of talking to a specific audience has basically entirely collapsed. Outside of closed groups and messaging systems, every post you write (hello, world!) is public, and you essentially have to be writing to everyone all at once. This is not a good thing, and contrary to what some would say, not wanting to talk to everyone at once is not lying or hypocrisy. It’s practical. This megaphone conversational mode leads to bad, unproductive discussions where people who agree get in fights, people who aren’t sure get alienated, and bad actors get to glory in the chaos.

Let’s take three hypothetical real life conversations about abortion, since that’s so terribly relevant right now:

In the first conversation, you say to a person you know to be liberal, who has read up on feminist theory and whom you expect to understand the bodily autonomy of all humans, “it’s critically important that all people with uteruses have access to the right to abortion.” They say, “Don’t you mean women?” You might get some TERFy vibes off of this. They know that uteruses don’t go hand in hand with being a woman, and you’re concerned about them dismissing this fact. The conversation moves in this direction, where maybe you remind them why this is an important distinction and try to ascertain why they disagree.

In the second conversation, you say to a person you know to have grown up in an evangelical Christian household, who has only recently begun expressing curiosity about activism and reproductive rights, “it’s critically important that all people with uteruses have access to the right to abortion.” They say, “Don’t you mean women?” and you realize that yeah, they have probably never considered trans men and non-binary folks as part of this conversation. You talk to them about it and understand if they don’t fully get it right away. You try to talk in familiar terms, with as little jargon as possible because this is a lot! And you hammer home that the most important thing is to be respectful of others and listen to their perspectives, even if you’re not sure you understand. Actually, especially then.

In the third conversation, you are saying “it’s critically important that all people with uteruses have access to the right to abortion,” to one of the two prior people when a shapeless void appears and shouts  “Don’t you mean women?” You recognize this as a Troll (a revenant? a Doctor Who villain? an evil cosplayer?) and very sensibly usher your real conversational partner away and stay as far from possible from the shapeless void.

On the internet, person one, person two, and Void Troll all appear to be exactly the same. You have no idea who you’re talking to. How are you supposed to respond? Do you try to look at a profile picture? Might that be a lie? Do you dig through their post history? What do you count as a red flag? Do you make a post that says “women” instead of “people with uteruses” to keep the focus on a different point? How do you react when another leftist replies saying that your language is pandering to conservatives? Do you go back to the “people with uteruses” language? What about when someone else replies saying that your use of jargon and quibbling over language that many people have never learned is a form of gatekeeping? What about when Void Troll tells you to kill yourself no matter how you word this post? How do you tell these people you weren’t writing this post for them when to all intents and purposes, because this is an open forum, you were? How does any of this help anyone trying not to have their reproductive rights stripped away?

I have no fucking idea.

But if you’re wondering why it’s so hard to have productive debate and educate people on the internet, this is part of it.

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hey. I'm INFJ. I want to ask about relationship problems. The relationship in question is between my ESTJ mother and I. Generally, I would describe our relationship as close and loving, but there is a conflict, and that came from our opposite ideology and political beliefs.

I want to say before continuing that we are neither American or European, so our ideology and politics shouldn't be understood from the "western" side of things, though to simplify by comparison, my views could be described as leftist and my mother's as conservative. I should also add that I used to hold her worldview when I was younger, but changed once I was old enough to form an opinion of my own. This caused my mother to imply many times in our discussions that I am "brainwashed" and dismiss me as "too young" and "too ideological". I should add that the latter (ideological) is a valid criticism. Still working on that.

Otherwise, I often tried to persuade, then later find middle ground with her, to no avail. We ended up arguing many times, until we decided to not talk politics with each other anymore. So, what's the problem, you might ask.

Recently, the political climate in my country got intense. Heated, even. I won't go into details, but there are protests again the government by young liberals/leftists-equivalent of my country. Many of my good acquaintances joined the protest. The government used police force against them, and it got violent. There are young unarmed protestors who were teargassed, beaten, and shot with rubber bullets and high velocity water jets. Some protestors were heavily injured. Some protestors were arrested and incarcerated in horrible conditions. My mother and I agreed to not speak about politics, so I said nothing.

Until my mother, right infront of me, with another family member, openly mocked the protestors, made judgments about them based on the goverment's propaganda, called them a nuisance, and implied that they "deserved it". It's not about her discussing it, but it's about how unempathetic she was when she said those things, towards those young people my age, with similar ideology to me, and how apathetic she was when she said that "nothing's going to change anyway". It was the first time that I saw my mother in that angle, the complete lack of humanity in her words. It still haunts me until now.

So my question to you is, how does one deal with that? I love my mother, I think I always will. I also know that she loves me, or at least the part of me that's still her child. But for a moment, I loved her less, and that frightened me. I began to wonder, what would happen one day if we have to actually take sides, because things are getting worse in my country, not better. This adds to other issues I have in my life and made me more depressed. A part of me tells me that I should tell her about how I feel, but how do you tell someone you love that they're one of the reasons for your sadness?

I'm sorry if this is stupid. I'm sure that this feeling I have is one-sided, and I wonder if I'm being selfish or ungrateful. Maybe it's because I'm too sensitive these days, so I thought if I have an outside neutral opinion, it will help illuminate my clouded mind. Thank you. I hope you had a good summer break!

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

The sentence that sticks out at me the most is: "It was the first time that I saw my mother in that angle, the complete lack of humanity in her words." I would argue that the problem doesn't lie with her. In fact, nothing about your mother had changed. She was still the same woman as before she uttered those words. The issue arises from your perception of her and the standards by which you evaluate her.

I follow world affairs very closely, so I think I know which region you are speaking of. One of the biggest problems in the manner that people think and talk about politics is the tendency to stereotype. Stereotyping is basically a form of cognitive oversimplification. It makes your thinking ability fast but also very dull and blunt, unable to understand situations with the nuance and sophistication that is required for good judgment and decision making.

It doesn't matter which country/culture you are from, there is always some variation of "right versus left". Why? Because in every society, there will always exist an underlying tension between those who don't want change and those who do. You may label these two opposing forces as right vs left, conservative vs liberal, regressive vs progressive, etc, but the fact of the matter is that these labels are gross oversimplifications of people's political belief systems.

When you divide people along an oversimplified dichotomy, it's too easy to stereotype them, in terms of believing that all people on each "side" hold all the same beliefs and values. Stereotyping goes along with the natural tendency of humans to be tribal. You start to view those on your side as being intellectually and morally superior to those on the other side. This leads to dehumanization and even demonization of the other side. In essence, you lose the ability to empathize with people, as long as you believe that they aren't on your side or the "right" side.

It seems that your political thinking has become too stark due to how extreme the situation has become. You have the feeling of fighting for your life because of the way that the situation has been handled by authorities, as they are indeed putting people's lives in danger. Your feelings about the situation are completely valid. But you fail to recognize that your mom's feelings about the situation are also valid. Certainly, there are hard-core fundamentalists and extremists out there that you can never reach because their beliefs and values are not based in any form of reason. However, I don't think your mom fits into that category, does she?

Do you know what it means to have no humanity? You are accusing her of something like psychopathy. Is that really true of her? I don't think so. She said: "nothing's going to change anyway". I don't consider this an expression of "apathy", as you assume. This is an expression of hopelessness. In that sentence, there is a real possibility that your mom is sympathetic at heart, but she disagrees that the chaotic actions of the protestors (i.e. the method) will lead to any meaningful change... and she may be absolutely right about that.

You haven't grasped the nuances of your mom's beliefs and values because your mindset has been so hardened by the extreme nature of the political conflict. This means that, when you engage in political discussion with her, you are unable to: 1) acknowledge how she feels, 2) acknowledge that there is some reason/merit/validity behind her beliefs, and 3) be open-minded enough to meet her halfway.

Put another way: If you met someone who wouldn't acknowledge your feelings as valid, dismissed all of your beliefs and values as completely wrong without proper investigation, and only sought to "convert" you, would you want to communicate with them? Probably not. This is the unproductive attitude that you now both bring to the table. This is the divisive attitude that arises when a conflict becomes too polarized and everyone is forced to "choose a side".

Unless one of you learns to listen and communicate more effectively, what will change? You say that you have tried to find middle ground with her but always end up arguing. Not finding middle ground is one thing, but getting caught up in interpersonal drama is a whole other thing. The option to amicably agree to disagree is always available. If you genuinely respect someone and respect their freedom to form their own beliefs, it shouldn't be hard to agree to disagree. Why do you find it so difficult to let her be her? Ultimately, you're not really interested in "middle ground"? You just want her agreement? Getting caught up in arguments all the time, especially on a recurring basis, indicates poor communication skills that stem from a troubling lack of objectivity. The more you argue with the intent to shame/change the other person, the more you push them away from your side, and the more myopic you get in your own beliefs.

You seem to have fallen into the trap of categorizing her into the tribe that you view as the enemy of your tribe, namely, the authorities that are cracking down on you young protestors. You've started to view her as the enemy, now you can't empathize with her, and even accuse her of having no humanity. You now consider yourself morally superior to her. If there is any possibility that she could be your ally, you've slammed the door on it.

You describe a very dire and desperate political situation that affects everyone, BUT, it doesn't affect everyone the same way. Different people have very different ways of dealing with intense emotions like fear, insecurity, grief, despair, helplessness, etc. Due to inferior Fi, ESTJs have extremely low tolerance for intense and uncontrollable emotions. Remember that one's ability to utilize the inferior function is not much better than a young child. If ESTJs can't neutralize or deflect their sense of powerlessness quickly, the burden of the emotions will quickly destroy them. I don't think you've really understood the thought process behind your mom's words and what is really motivating her "apathy".

Just because someone doesn't agree with your methods, doesn't mean that they don't have anything in common with you. Politics isn't just about good vs evil, as in, if you don't stand up for good, then you are evil. Everyone has their own way of looking at the situation because everyone has their own interests to take care of first and foremost, and everyone has their own ideas about the best methods to pursue. This is true for both you and your mom. It is possible to agree on beliefs but disagree on methods. For example, I'm assuming that you care about this cause so deeply because you care about your future. Sure, your ideas about the future differ from hers. But, certainly, you are both interested in securing your future, aren't you?

History has shown us that young people are always more willing to fight for causes because: 1) they would suffer less immediate material loss than the elder generation, 2) they have fewer life responsibilities, obligations, and commitments to take into consideration, and 3) their lack of life experience sometimes makes their thinking too simplistic when visualizing future implications.

Your interests aren't fully aligned with your mom's in this situation, perhaps because you are from different generations. However, this doesn't mean that your interests don't align in other important ways. At the end of the day, your mom is probably deathly afraid of seeing YOU on the news being beaten to a pulp and disappeared by the police, right? And it may be the case that she's passing harsh judgment on the protestors because she's trying to discourage you from meeting their horrible fate? That's hardly lack of humanity.

To be a good critical thinker, you need to learn to be more objective. Objectivity means understanding all aspects of the situation, or as many as you can manage. Objectivity and empathy often go hand-in-hand. You won't be able to empathize well unless you acknowledge that there might be some aspects of the situation that you're not seeing or understanding. When you take more time to get to the bottom of someone's thought process and why they really feel the way they do, you will discover all sorts of openings to influence their political beliefs in a friendly way. But when you can't even acknowledge that the other side might have an important point to be made, because you are so hardened in your stance, you've created a dead end for yourself.

[eroticcannibal]

Common myths and misconceptions about home education

So in case anyone has somehow missed it, I have recently become a Big supporter of home education in a very lefty way, which has meant I have had to challenge a lot of views I have previously held about home education and that I know a lot of other lefties hold too. I am of the opinion that embracing home education, not as a last resort, but as the primary form of education for as many children as possible, is a vital part of achieving the required shifts in society needed to meet the goals of most leftists. So I am taking it on myself to convince you all that it is a very good thing, and also to clear up some misconceptions people have about home education that may make them feel they are unable to do it.

(A note, I am from the UK and shall be using UK terminology and specifics regarding law, policy and other such things will be from a UK perspective. I shall be using the term home education, as that is the legal term in the UK and is distinct from home schooling, which is the term for what school children have been doing during the pandemic.)

And I would also like to extend a quick thanks to Education Otherwise and the mods at Home education and your local authority for teaching me A LOT.

Have any questions about anything I’ve not covered here? Just let me know!

1. “Home education is illegal.”

- Sadly, home education is illegal or restricted to the point of inaccessibility in most of the world. From the research I have done, it seems that only the US and the UK have reasonable laws around home education (if I am using a very broad definition of reasonable, it is still not great). I do hope I can change this section soon, and I would *heavily* encourage people to campaign for the right to home educate post pandemic, perhaps cite any benefits learning at home has provided to children, perhaps???

2. “Home education is a tool used by religious fundamentalists to brainwash children!”

- This is a view many hold, and for good reason. For many of us, when we think of home education, we think of christian fundamentalists in the deep south of America, pulling their children out of school to avoid the liberal agenda. The truth is, anything can be used as a tool of indoctrination. This can happen in home education, and it can happen and has happened in schools too. In my own communities we have had instances of schools being a site of religious radicalization of children. The reality is this is far too complex and deep an issue to be solved by deeming any particular form of education as “bad”. I am not an expert on how best to deal with such issues, but I do feel that things like outreach and building a healthy community with otherwise more isolated religious groups would be a better way to address these issues.

3. “You need to have x qualification to home educate.”

- Again, a reasonable view to hold, given that state run and private education does require educators to hold certain qualifications, but in practice it quickly becomes evident the same does not necessarily have to apply with home education. Educational qualifications are very much focused on delivering an education in a classroom, which is a far cry from home education. During our home education of our child, my partner, who is a qualified SEN TA, has struggled far more than I have with educating our SEN child, despite the fact I hold no qualifications.

We live in amazing times when it comes to education. There are many things that parents and communities have to teach a child, and there are many things a child can teach to themself if given the tools to do so. You can even learn together! Their are endless resources available, books and games and documentaries, and even home education groups and private tutors if you feel that is the right fit for your child. You don’t need a piece of paper for your child to spend a day with their nose buried in a book, or to help the neighbor with his vegetable patch, or to cuddle up on the sofa while watching Planet Earth.

4. “You are required to follow the national curriculum.”

- This does vary by country (that allows home education). As a general rule, the stricter a country is about who can home educate, the stricter they are about what must be taught. In the UK, you are not required to follow the national curriculum. Education must be “efficient” and suited to the child’s “age, aptitude and ability”, and LAs do require that english and maths are covered. Other than that, you are allowed to tailor the content of education to the child and their interests. We have recently dropped geography for now and are only just picking up history again. It has also given us the freedom to focus on areas our child needs that would not be covered in mainstream education, such as anxiety management, trauma processing, self care and hygiene.

5. “Home education looks like school/is just filling out workbooks/etc”

- The thing you will always hear from experienced home educators when you begin home education is “home education doesn’t need to be school at home”. Much like you can tailor the content of the learning to the child, you can also tailor the delivery to the child. Some child need structure, timetable, instructions. Some need freedom and to bounce between topics. Some need to have an hour learning maths and only maths, some need to go dig up your garden “for science”. Some want to learn every day, some will need extended breaks.

Learning happens all the time, from the moment they wake to the moment they sleep. As an example, at home we have some workbooks, as both me and my child have ADHD and need someone to go “ok learn this” rather than us having to work out for ourselves what we need to cover for core subjects like english and maths. For the rest of most days my child is left to their own devices to binge youtube and netflix and work on their art. We try and go for a woodland walk every few days, where we have Deep Discussions about all kinds of topics, and we are also working on growing edible plants and baking cakes from around the world. We are more hands-off at the moment, due to the current bout of anxiety, but when that settles again we will get back to history themed crafts and STEM activities. Post-pandemic, we will be signing our kid up for swimming classes and “after school” clubs, and looking at sending them down to my mum for the home ed groups where she lives, like the forest school. A lot of home education outside of a pandemic is in groups and community based, or will make use of libraries and museums and other public learning opportunities. Frequently very little will happen at home.

In fact many home educators will advise new families to “deschool” for a while before jumping in to learning. This is a period where you “get school out of your system”, and just exist. Learning does not have to be intentional, you will be surprised how much you can achieve by just having fun.

6. “Home education is expensive.”

- It can be, ask my bank account. However, it is perfectly possible to deliver a quality education with little to no money. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s doable. Their are many online resources for free (check out oak academy), and libraries have plenty available too. Even paid resources can be very cheap if you know where to look. (psst, if your kid thrives with worksheets and powerpoints, get yourself a twinkl subscription, download everything you need for a year then cancel it.)

(This does not apply to exams. Get saving!)

7. “Home educated children are not properly socialised.”

- This is only really true during the pandemic. The rest of the time, home educated children are free to socialise whenever they want, with whoever they want, in whatever setting they choose. Socialisation while home educating is in the opinions of many of a higher quality, as they are not limited to groups of a similar age and background. Many home educating families form groups for their children to socialise together too. For ND children especially, socialising while home educated can be far less stressful and far more fulfilling than in school.

8. “Home educated children won’t get qualifications.”

- Just plain not true. Arranging qualifications can be costly and time consuming, but it is possible and regularly done. Some children may return to school or college to access exams for free, and I have heard of a handful of cases where individuals were able to secure prestigious university places without any qualifications. Home education also allows for more freedom with how exams and qualifications are approached, for example, many home educated children will pick one GCSE to focus on at a time, rather than covering numerous topics over 2 years and having exams for all of them at once like children in school will.

9. “Home education is a safeguarding risk/is used to cover up abuse/home educated children are not seen.”

- In the UK at least, home education is not considered a safeguarding risk, no matter what authorities may tell you, nor are home educated “not seen”. They still visit medical professionals, they still engage with their communities.

Now I shall add the relevant paper here should I find it again, but the idea that home education is used to cover up abuse to a statistically significant degree, or that home educated children are at more risk of abuse, is false. Home educating families do face a significantly higher risk of social services involvement than other families, but far less abuse is found in comparison to other families. It is also worth considering, when talking about social services involvement, that many families pursue home education due to failures by schools regarding a child’s vulnerabilities. In most cases, especially the Big Ones, where a home educated child is abused, the child was already known to authorities as a victim of abuse, therefore home educating did nothing to hide said abuse.

Children are also routinely abused in schools, which is another common reason for home educating.

10. “Home education has to be monitored or approved.”

- Depends on the country, I know in Japan home education is monitored by schools, however in the UK, monitoring is not lawful. Local authorities may make informal enquiries to ensure a suitable education is being facilitated (keep EVERYTHING in writing and please go straight to “home education and your local authority” group on FB for advice, you WILL need it!). In England, if your child is in mainstream education, you can deregister at will, from a special school will require LA approval. In Scotland deregistering requires LA approval. (Again, head to the aforementioned group for advice).

11. “You can’t work/get an education while home educating”

- It is hard to balance work, education and educating your child, but it is possible, people do it every day. Obviously, having at least one parent free to educate unhindered at all times is an ideal situation, but in the real world it often does not work that way. Parents may have to home educate regardless of their other commitments if a child truly needs to escape the school system. Many parents work or learn from home, and sometimes it is even possible to combine these activities with home education. Professional artists and crafters can pass down their skills while working, distance learners can invite their children to sit in on lectures. The really great thing about home education is it is flexible. Do you have a whole day of meetings? Let the kid play minecraft all day! Going to be in the office all day? Drop the kid off at the local forest school or something else they can do all day. Drop them with the grandparents to help with the gardening!

12. “Home educated are behind/achieve less than school children.”

- Their is no evidence that home education is of a lower quality than school education. Many children are home educated specifically because the school environment was detrimental to their education, and thrive with home education. Plenty of children are able to learn more simply by having 1-to-1 attention, without the distraction of an entire class. And others may well be “behind”, and are educated at home because of their specific needs that mean they will never thrive in an academic setting, so they are allowed to focus on learning skills that will allow them to live independently.

[casual-eumetazoa]

i haven’t written a life update in a while and idk if anyone will read it but hey, typing out stuff like this can be helpful at untangling your thoughts sometimes, so might as well. no shade if you scroll past tho, enjoy the memes and DW posts and happy scrolling!

so. in terms of writing, which i’ve talked about the most on here, i’m more or less in the same place since the last update. i’ve started querying the novel in March, i’m through about 1/5th of my list of literary agents, so far nothing but form rejections from those. i am currently waiting on 4 responses i think, plus waiting on a query response from 3 publishers and 1 response after a full manuscript request from one publisher

the most recent thing that happened is getting a very nice and personal rejections from a publisher, which was the first after ~35 form copy-paste rejections from others. and the explanation was... the book is great (”very well-written and the issue isn’t with quality”) but they are not the best publisher for it. after i asked for querying advice, the editor wrote back an even more lovely email, and basically confirmed my guess: the book is niche, it doesn’t quite fit into any conventional sci-fi category, and therefore most publishers will not touch it because it is “unmarketable”. i knew already that publishing is a business and it is not at all about book quality, but this was perhaps the most honest articulation of it and i am very grateful for that email

the current plan is to keep querying anyway until i run out of agents and publishers... yes the chances are slim to none, but i’ve done all the work already and it would be a shame not to do it. maybe some of those agents or editors will at least get some enjoyment out of reading the manuscript or whatever. i’m just sending out a finished product at this point so might as well, it takes me a couple minutes to send an email

i am also trying to write a different novel (or rather re-writing an old one) but if i’m being honest, it hasn’t been going very well. grad school takes up a lot of my energy and whatever is left i spend on YouTube and other stuff. i am planning to do NaNoWriMo this year and i have all of my outlines and plans at the ready so maybe this will change soon

speaking of YouTube - i am ready to shoot my latest essay but it keeps getting delayed for a variety of reasons. maybe i’ll manage to do it on these weekends but considering that my boyfriend is coming over to the city, yeah, i won’t promise anything. i do very much care about that channel and i have like 5 or 6 ideas in the pipeline, it just takes a lot of effort. i’ve gotten to a point where i actually care about views and it ruined the fun of it a little bit but i’m trying to focus on the process. also, i have sent requests for shout-outs to 2 leftist youtubers who do shout-outs, did not get a reply from either, but who knows.

generally, i’ve been feeling kind of... uneasy and anxious about the creative stuff lately. as i am getting closer to graduating, i have to think about how i’m going to make money once my scholarship runs out. since i do not want (and cannot, actually) jump into phd right away, i’ll need to find some job - and with my chronic illnesses and neurotype and education/skillset, the possibilities are very limited. one thing i know i could do is tutor in biology, probably online, probably to high school and undergraduate students, and it seems like a very good fit for me. if by any chance you are reading this and know someone (including yourself) who needs a biology tutor btw, you are very welcomed to reach out. 

anyway, point is, i feel kind of... foolish and childish putting effort into creative stuff when i could start tutoring already and actually make money. like, writing is the most fulfilling thing for me and it is the thing that makes me the happiest, but it is not a job. there is no way i can make stable income off of writing fiction. youtube is close in levels of fulfillment i get out of it, but i have like 60 subscribers right now and it will be ages before i will be able to get any money off of ads or patreon. so why am i spending time and energy on this stuff instead of working?

i know that mindset is exactly what i despise about the modern world but also, from a practical standpoint, i do need to eat and my family cannot support me indefinitely (as much as they would want to). so yeah, keeping a balance between “fuck capitalism, art is precious” and “i have 10 dollars on my bank account” is tricky

other than all that, i am doing pretty well and there is a lot in my life i am very happy with. so complaining feels... ungratefull. my life is kinda hectic though and that also makes it difficult to be creative sometimes. i am, however, a very stubborn aries moon who very rarely drops any projects after they’ve been started. so if creative inspiration won’t keep me going, the desire to Get Thing Done certainly will

[rametarin]

I have been saying this for years: Those specific kinds of radical leftists are not the ones you need to worry about. Those ones are like worrying about the snide 6 year olds that just chronically echo the cult leaders by just parroting the things the coaches and tweed wearing professors say.

They're the ones trying and failing to channel the message. The way they've always operated is they decentralize the message (to appearances) and just make it look like a bunch of people randomly came to these conclusions on their own with no trail back to where the message came from. The idiots doing it and rabblerousing and misinterpreting the message still carries the message, the message makers at the head of it just don't have to take any responsibility for the sass or disruption or antagonism, and they can disavow them as "not representative of them or their message" at a whim.

The ones that can make memes don't do it by taking a picture of Marvel movies and go "Fighting Trump is just like this scene!" The ones that do meme are the ones schooled in communication and psychology that start their arguments at different places than they should be.

For example, they want to proactively argue against the use of biology in how we define sex and argue that society should abolish physical sex and pronouns associated with it, in favor of adopting gender as social class, and consider a biologically oriented source for pronouns as archaic and outdated, the way "race as destiny" is seen as archaic and bigoted. Rather than start the argument that way and demand the institution change, they instead became the institution and decided to argue this position from the angle of civil rights, and arguing it was the transgendered's civil rights for humanity to define its genders based on self-identification, and declaring anything else to be, "assigned by society." That's appropriating not just the argument but the entire language and choosing the battleground of where the argument begins.

Trans rights to them is just the chosen battleground that affords them the greatest leverage for a class based way to disestablish objective biological sex as the default and enshrine self-identification based class. And that's all trans rights is to them. An opportunity to disentangle biology from what someone is, as they despise identity being something inherent and baked in and non-consensual. You can't choose to be biologically male or female- but you can choose your gender.

Now think about this from the perspective of just how impossible this mindfuck of a phenomenon is to explain in a short length of a tumblr post, and ask yourself, "Can the radical left meme?" Because attached to this dishonest, bad faith movement, they simply use the neutral and benign seeming words: "[Person] said, 'Trans rights.' "

Underestimate this enemy (who is in fact abusing and exploiting transgendered civil rights to go in this direction, and I'm not disputing trans rights in a form- just not this particular one) at your own peril.

Why is it that Twitter - a site that limits posts to 280 characters - is dominated by radical leftists, who are the same people who can’t make a meme with less than 6 paragraphs of run-on text?

[whitehotharlots]

Do you give leftism a fair shake? Firstly let me say how refreshing this is- to find someone to break down this entire debacle, it’s associations to the corrupt Democratic Party, and the sickening selfishness that threatens any era. I also agree with calling it a form of conservatism. It certainly shares features with nutter Christians from the 1950s, as well as the violent excesss of current police strategies (ruin people’s characters and career). Do you consider real leftist thought?

I’m a leftist. I’m also a professor of English and I got my phd at a very cultural studies-heavy program so I’d say that I’ve given the left a fair shake. There’s tons of leftist authors whose work I admire. But being really deeply immersed within left thought means that I’m not inclined to cheerlead it or avoid pointing out its inconsistencies. One thing I hate is the notion of “cultural marxism,” with right wing internet creeps blaming an explosion of cultural idiocy on Foucault or whatever. One thing I’ve noticed recently--particularly with James Lindsay and the rest of the Sokal squared people--is that they’ll base their connections between leftist theory and alienating acts of wokeness on very superficial, Cliff’s Notes-level reading of those theorists. This was striking because there’s usually no pushback from purported leftists against these misreadings--and that’s because most people who go through cultural studies programs, even at an advanced level, don’t actually read the vast majority of the works they discuss and putatively base their beliefs upon. I’m not exaggerating. I’ve known dozens of people who got tenure track academic jobs and fully, openly admit to doing barely any reading throughout the whole of their MA or PhD programs. They were able to graduate--not sneak by, but excel and become leaders in their fields--by skimming wikipedia pages and connecting what they read to some pet issue of theirs in an extremely tenuous manner. They then go out and become recognized experts on texts they haven’t even read yet and their misreadings become canonized. It’s gotten so bad that actually reading the theory you’ve been assigned can harm your job prospects, because basing your analysis on what authors actually wrote--rather than the vague summaries and half-assed analyses that have entered into the wider discourse--requires you to alienate yourself intellectually. That’s how the actually existing intellectual left has collapsed into such a solipsistic and self-contradictory mess. It’s how deeply regressive politics have become standard praxis. And it’s why it’s so easy for intellectual lightweights to issue effective criticisms against us.

[arizonaconservativegal]

First of all, thanks for replying. And thanks to the people in the notes who followed up, as well. In terms of interests, while I would love someone who shares a lot of them, I really only have one that's necessary. As an aspiring game developer, games are my art form, especially the world building and the mechanics and systems in place. I want someone who shares this love, who I can bond over with. Anything else would just be icing on the cake. In terms of appearance, I'd prefer if she were shorter than me by a good amount, ideally at or below 5' 6" but I'm fine as long as she's not above like 5' 10". I'm not the leanest person myself, I've got a little belly, but I'm working on it and slowly losing weight. I don't mind if she's a little chubby either, but if she's really fat I just can't go with that. I'm probably a little hypocritical here as I'd obviously prefer someone who's in shape, but I can find some heavier women attractive as long as they're short and feminine. I dislike body modifications, and would prefer someone without any, but I could deal with a few small tattoos and a few piercings, as long as they're not gauges or septum piercings. And obviously she needs to want kids (but not have any), needs to be not a full-on leftist (I'm fine with a centrist, conservative, or ideally a libertarian), and just have a nice personality that gels with mine. I tend to be a pretty low-key, somewhat boring person, and have trouble dealing with people who have "big" personalities. I find that at my age, it's hard to find someone who wants kids but doesn't have any, and who likes games but isn't butch or seriously fat or really punk or whatever. Those are pretty much my lines in the sand, appearance and personality-wise. Do I have too many of them? Are there things I should care less about? As I said, I've never been in a relationship, so I really don't know what's important and what's not. I'm just basing what I want on what I personally prefer.

And I know what I need to do to become more attractive, myself. Lose some weight, get a better job, move out. Is there anything else I need to do, and what should I prioritize? Right now I'm thinking about trying for a raise at work, but I'm also worried it'll put me over the pay limit for subsidized healthcare, and I've got a lot of health problems that are out of my control. I'd need to jump to a job with actual benefits to make it really worth it, so it'll be hard just moving up gradually.

And finally, just because I'm spilling everything out here anyway, there's a girl at work who recently broke up with her boyfriend of 5 years who I've been becoming quite friendly with. She's always enjoyable to talk to, and she seems to like me at least as a friend. However she's not got a lot in common with me. There's a guy who clearly likes her, and she has a friend that's probably into her, and I knew her ex and they all have a similar look that's very different to me. I think she also tends to go for "bad boys" and I'm definitely not one of them. She recently asked about my interests and stuff kind of probing more deeply, but since I basically haven't had any friends for years I don't know if that's just what's normal or if she's actually a little bit interested in me. Honestly I'm not sure what to do or if I should even do anything. She's basically a normie and I'm borderline autistic. I'm not used to anyone actually being interested in anything about me and I don't know how to tell one kind of "interest" from another. And considering she's a coworker and I enjoy her company, I don't want to fuck anything up. What do I do?

Ok there's a lot to unpack here...

First of all, I'm not going to be that person who tells you looks don't matter because let's all be honest here for a second, they do and anyone who says otherwise is lying for internet morality points. Obviously if you're going to date someone, you need to not be repulsed by their physical appearance.

But. Looks are not the most important thing and they're also not permanent. Plus in my experience, the more you get to know someone, the more attractive they become to you because you just see people differently when you love them. So don't worry so much about finding the most beautiful girl you've ever seen, or being the most handsome guy she's ever seen. When it's right, that stuff will handle itself.

(Also, I'm not saying you did this, but if you put all that in your online dating profile, please delete it immediately because it will scare women off if it's public and even if it's just for the algorithm, you're probably losing a lot of potentially good matches by being too specific)

I would think a little more about personality. It can be a lot harder to define that than appearance, but that's the part of her that you're going to really fall for. What does "big" personality mean to you? Does that mean just being loud, or is it a certain kind of humor, or just being extroverted or outgoing? Think a little about the people you enjoy spending time with and figure out what it is about them that makes you want to be around them. Interests are a good starting point, but try to think about what drives those interests and how they express them.

And think about you too. How would you describe yourself? I'd guess with your interest in game development, you probably have a big imagination and attention to detail, yeah? Do you have a dry sense of humor, maybe? Are you a patient person? Do you prefer to be busy or to take it easy? When you get stressed out, what calms you down? What are your values in life?

Think about what kind of person complements all that. Remember you're looking for a partner, someone to build a life with. That means the two of you have to make a good team. You'll bring out the best in each other and compensate for each other's weaknesses.

As for the changes you think you need to make, I'm going to let you in a little secret about women: there is nothing sexier to us than a guy who has his shit together. And that doesn't mean you need a fancy law degree and a six figure office job and a mortgage. It means knowing who you are and what you want and be working a clear, realistic plan to get there.

So yes, everything you mentioned is probably a good idea because it sounds like that will help you have more confidence and get on more solid ground with your life and future. But as for what you should do first, just focus on what is best for you, not for some hypothetical future wife you haven't met yet. It sounds to me like you've still got some healing to do and that needs to be your priority.

But when you're ready, the only thing to do is start talking to people and go on lots of dates that will mostly go nowhere. That's okay. The point is to meet girls and see if there's enough there for a second date, then maybe a third, and so on. You're not looking for something that's perfect right away. You're just looking for a starting point to build something more from.

In your case, yes, you probably do need to find a girl who at least has some interest in video games. It's going to be too much of your life for her to not at least be willing to indulge you when you want to talk about the game you're working on. I would guess that there are a lot of girls in "nerd" category who maybe don't know much about video games but would be interested if someone they cared about wanted to show them. Or if you really want to start off with just a pool of people who are as interested in game development as you, I'd hazard a guess that there are conventions or online forums on the subject. Maybe check out some of those and just start talking to people. Maybe it goes nowhere. Maybe you make a new friend. Maybe more. Who knows?

As for the girl at work, I think you're setting yourself up to get hurt. Girls who go for bad boys don't usually change their habits easily. She may be interested in you because you're not like her ex and she's trying to try something different, but that doesn't usually last. It isn't that you're doing anything wrong, it really is just how girls like that are. And it doesn't make any sense but it's how it is.

In general though, if you're getting to know a girl and you're not sure if she's looking for a friend or a boyfriend, it's okay to ask. Don't be creepy about it or anything, but it's okay to say something like "I just want to make sure I'm not reading too much into this." And be prepared to drop it if she says she just wants to be friends.

(Also my rule for dating coworkers is this: if it's a job you plan to stay at long term and you work closely together, the answer is no. If it's more of a temporary thing or you really only pass her in the hall once a week, that's probably okay as long as your company doesn't have some policy against it)

Bottom line, you're overthinking this. Love isn't logical. You can make all the plans and checklists in the world and none of them matter because that's just not how it works. Trust me, if it was, I'd be married by now too.

All you can really do is be the best version of yourself for you, meet a bunch of people, probably get your heart broken a couple of times along the way, and eventually you'll find someone who makes it all worth it.

-

As a side note, are you in a good church? If you're a person of faith at all (and I'm an atheist, so no judgement if you're not), I think having a community like that around you would be good for you right now.

[queeranarchism]

Kill your idols?

I wanna question the 'kill your idols' mentality. First said by Sonic Youth in 1983, the song Kill Your Idols was written after getting a bad review by music critic Robert Christgau, Sonic Youth wrote:

"I don't know why you want to impress Christgau Ah, let that shit die and find out the new goal, Kill Your Idols"

So ‘Kill your idols’ originally meant: stop putting people on a platform in our head. Don’t make someone out to be more special than yourself because they’re famous. Stop caring so much what they think. It was about how you relate to celebrities. 

Over time, it has mixed with the good anarchist praxis of not having leaders. ‘Kill your idols’ came to mean ‘to be anarchist is to resist the existence of celebrity and fame because those are forms of social power’. This too is a good mentality. It makes sense to want to prevent anyone from getting too much social power. At first, resisting the existence of celebrity was still mainly done by the viewer, who resisted by not fawning for famous anarchists and staying critical.

But more and more ‘kill our idols’ seems to have come to mean ‘destroy your idols’. Celebrating and promoting the downfall of celebrities became a sort of stand in for the spectacle of guillotining the rich. This started with millionaires bu came to include anyone who is perceived as a celebrity (and a lot of people without any fame or power have been considered ‘tumblr famous’ at some point)

‘Kill your idols’ becomes not something you do in your mind, but something you do to a person. It is a double action by the community: first you idolize someone, which comes with expectations of perfection, then you ‘kill’ them (decide together that they’re complete trash) when they do not live up to them.

This is a problem I think, because it means that instead of tasting the blood of CEO’s, we occasionally revel in the social destruction of one of our own, a leftist who got too famous, failed to live up to our standards of perfection and must now be exiled from our communities. We're not really overthrowing power, we're acting out our high school fantasy of destroying the popular kids. This sort of community mob justice inevitably impact how we interact with each other all through our communities. Because on some level we know we could be next.

Now, I support the ‘to be anarchist is to resist the existence of celebrity and fame because those are forms of social power’ thing, but I think we can find ways that rely less on punishment and exile of people who have gotten too famous, and more on changing how we interact with them to bring them back to the status of ‘just one of us like any other’.

Part of the answer probably lies in getting back to the original meaning of ‘kill your idols’: stop considering some people special and caring extra about what they think.

[underestimated-heroine]

The story [by Isabel Fall] was a response to the transphobic meme of the same name, but whether it was a reclamation or further mockery was up for debate: the author was an unknown, and there was no definitive proof how she identified. The story was nominated for a Hugo award, but despite the critical acclaim it received, it was also dragged through the mud on Twitter by readers who assumed the worst intentions. [...] When she wrote the story, Isabel Fall was putting one foot out of the closet as a trans woman, not yet ready to be completely out in her life. Since the backlash, she has stopped using that name and withdrawn her stories on similar themes that had been in progress. She saw publishing this story as an “important test for myself, sort of a peer review of my own womanness. I think I tried to open a door and it was closed from the other side because I did not look the right shape to pass through it.”

It’s tempting to be dismissive and angry at these paranoid readings: “They’re looking for things to be angry about!” But that sentiment seems remarkably similar to right-wing complaints about leftist “cancel culture”: that queer and trans people, people of colour, disabled people are creating problems where there are none. It’s a strawman feminist stereotype. What’s missing, too, from this dismissal, is where this impulse is coming from. There is a very good reason that trans readers are approaching stories from a skeptical perspective, and that’s because historically, the vast majority of trans representation has been malicious. Trans or gender-nonconforming characters have been the villains or the butt of the joke, whether in centuries old plays or modern TV. [...] At the same time, this impulse becomes weaponized against other trans creators. It’s also limiting: paranoid reading is deletive. It can only take away. It can easily lead to restrictive standards that only allow a certain kind of art to be acceptable, one that checks a series of prescribed boxes and doesn’t include any messiness, grey areas, or uncomfortable complexities. An example Sedgwick uses is camp, which is can be a source of queer joy and creativity, but is misrecognized by paranoid reading. Reclamation, drag, and many other forms of queer expression can be misread or limited by a paranoid reading being applied.

To slip into cliche, it’s also worth reiterating that paranoia is a natural response to a hostile environment: It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you. Ira explains that, “as a transsexual living under neoliberal homonationalism, I need my paranoid reading skills at hand when I encounter cops, doctors, and other types of imperial myrmidon.” There are many situations where a paranoid lens is more useful than a reparative one, especially when your immediate safety is at stake. Ira continues, “No, it is as Sedgwick said: we must keep all of our tools to hand, both the paranoid and the reparative.”

When you find yourself joining a Twitter pile-on against someone, consider extending a reparative lens, at least to try it. But also keep in mind that dismissing paranoid reading out of hand is also unproductive. We need a balance of approaches, and room for conversations to include both playing off of each other. Otherwise, we risk missing valid critique as well as chasing creators off the internet for exploring nuance.

idek it's so hard to pick "the best" excerpts from this one. the whole thing's good. you just have to read it.

have shared before but this is a damn good read. I'd go so far as to say everyone on this website could stand to read it.

[mashkaroom]

This isn’t related to anything, but frozen 2 was actually...pretty good of a movie, and you can literally see the disney profit model holding it back. firstly, the music was really good -- i was really impressed with the writing team and with the vocal performances, especially by idina menzel. the songs that didn’t make it in because the plot was rearranged were also excellent. wrt to the visuals, i’m not the biggest fan of this specific animation style, but it’s clear it’s very well done -- i’ve no choice but to be impressed. the plot was whatever (also they fully put a couple of trolls in charge of the kindom for a bit -- is there no fucking line of succession in this goddamn kingdom?? maybe the plot of the movie should have been establishing a functional bureaucracy) and they really yada-yada-ed the magic system, which was basically of the central conceit of the movie so...why did they not put more effort into it? the explanation, such as it was, of the magic system was both confusing and ultimately pretty meaningless -- it added next to nothing of value to the lore or theme or worldbuilding. the themes were clearly meant for a more mature audience (which is i guess what you get for waiting 7 years to make a sequel [which btw just wrenched out a memory out of me that frozen 1 came up literally constantly in my 7th grade latin class -- i cannot emphasize enough how bizarre of an experience learning a dead language throughout the entirety of your teenage years along with 400 more of your cohort is]) -- but anyway, they establish all these themes and then don’t commit to them. Like, the central plot conflict of the movie is literally colonialism lmao. it’s such a strange place to discuss it. My suspicion is that they decided right away to go with a “connecting with mother” storyline, since the “women in the same family connecting with each other” bit worked so well in the first movie; then they were like “is this too basic?” and decided that they should wrap that into a “reckoning with ancestry” thread to cash into that “young leftist with white guilt” market. Then they had somebody on the writing staff who was like “what if we made this about colonialism?” So re: those elements, first of all the mother plotline is boring as shit. Like it doesn’t ring true even to losing a loved one early, but it especially rings soooo hollow wrt the actual relationship that is portrayed in the first movie between elsa and her parents. like we see the parents be so misguided it borders on abusive. and that’s a really interesting dynamic, story-wise, bc the parents are dead and can’t redeem themselves but the baggage they left behind is still there, so the burden of processing that falls exclusively on the daughters. i dare say this is something probably relatable to many of us, bc it’s my sense that most people grow up with pretty misguided parents! (lowkey i feel like the best parenting i’ve seen in my circle are parents who basically went off of vibes rather than idk a philosophy or whatever) i actually would have loved to see a children’s movie address dealing with parents in a nuanced way that isn’t just “one of us is right and the other is wrong” but rather addresses what responsibilities parents and children have to each other, how to navigate intent versus effect, what the value (or lack thereof) of forgiveness is, how to uncover your identity when your entire life was shaped by societal and parental expectations, etc. And the Frozen premise is ideally suited for this! Moreover, a lot of these beats actually DO happen in the movie! Into the unknown is basically elsa trying and failing to convince herself that she wants the life she has and any thoughts to the contrary should be dismissed (and it’s gay as hell, but we’ll get to that later). The climax of show yourself literally says that it was the truth about herself rather than her mother that will bring her peace. But all of these beats are facilitated supernaturally rather than by the very fitting preexisting character background, which makes it lack the satisfaction you’d expect in such a resolution. it never features any reckoning with what made her feel the way she did in the first place -- a projection of the mother’s face singing the climactic realization literally undercuts the entire plotline. like here you can see how basically being propaganda for the american lifestyle (in this case the nuclear family e.g.) undercuts their message. this predictably only gets more egregious when they attempt to tackle colonialism. so quick summary of this plotline: anna and elsa’s grandfather basically genocided an indigenous people -- the northuldra -- after tricking them into building a dam that stifles the power of the forest or something. also their mother was actually northuldra. also magic comes from the northuldra forest? it would probably be pretty problematic re: the magical native stereotype if it was clearer what was going on lmao. at the end, anna breaks the dam even though it’ll flood Arendelle; however, elsa (who was literally frozen because of the sins of the past) swoops in at the last moment and freezes the wave so it causes no damage. However, in an earlier version of the story, the wave actually DOES destroy Arendelle and then they rebuild it with a mix of Arendellian and Northuldran architectural styles. this version actually proposed a genuine vision for how to deal with the impacts of colonialism instead of the final movie where sisterly love absolves everyone of consequences. 

ok, so about the gay: i know people read a coming out into let it go, and maybe this is just cause i watched frozen 1 when i was still straight, but i didn’t really see it. but the lyrics in frozen 2 elsa’s songs match up so well with the coming out experience, i have difficulty imagining the song-writers weren’t aware of it, especially since people were already calling for elsa to be gay. Like let’s take a look at these songs -- into the unknown first. She sings

“Everyone I've ever loved is here within these walls I'm sorry, secret siren, but I'm blocking out your calls I've had my adventure, I don't need something new I'm afraid of what I'm risking if I follow you”

This idea of having being afraid of ruining relationships even (and especially) with the people you love most by coming out is something that a lot of queer people can relate to. Then she sings:

“Are you here to distract me so I make a big mistake? Or are you someone out there who's a little bit like me? Who knows deep down I'm not where I'm meant to be? Every day's a little harder as I feel your power grow Don't you know there's part of me that longs to go”

How much do i need to explain this? (like all my 7 followers are some form of queer anyway lol) But again this battle of trying to hide but knowing deep down that you can’t, longing for “someone a little bit like me” --  it’s classic queer. Then she sings a bridge-type thing:

“Are you out there? Do you know me? Can you feel me? Can you show me?”

I mean, again, what is this but longing for community. Then in the climactic song “show yourself”, she sings this:

“Something is familiar Like a dream, I can reach but not quite hold I can sense you there Like a friend I've always known”

this is literally just about reading stone butch blues.

The climactic lyric is  “You are the one you've been waiting for all your life” (sung to her rather than by her) and i mean again, this is about finally giving yourself permission to live as your true self. And not gonna lie, i dug that shit. it felt quite authentic. obviously they didn’t actually make her gay, bc of course, but she is gay in my heart!

Ok, so what would have made the movie live up to its full potential?

1) fixing that stuff i already said about the parents; it felt like such bs that anna and elsa were dealing with ancestral sins but also their parents were saints whose love fixed everything? how much more interesting would it have been if reckoning with their parents’ impacts on them led them to reckoning with the impacts of their entire ancestry and in turn their society? if reckoning with their personal responsibilities to each other led them to consider their society’s responsibility to fix the past wrongs that allowed it to flourish? this wouldn’t even be counter to disney’s individualism, but it allows for a slight reconceptualization of it that i think would feel fresh.

2) having actual consequences for the colonialism and genocide

3) either cutting all the new magic system stuff or developing it in a way that in turn helps develop the themes. frankly, the “sometimes people are born with magic” that was implied in movie one was enough.

4) making elsa gay, and i say this not just because i want gay characters but because that genuinely makes sense within the story

5) basically, the central theme should have been “i have all this baggage and i can’t resolve it by looking for answers only within my society; in order to be fully at peace with myself, i must work to right the wrongs of my society that obscured the different ways of knowledge that could help people like me; sometimes you must go into the unknown in order to understand the known” which is a message i think very well suited for the united states!