#fierceawakening

[siryouarebeingmocked]

The article / Archive

I'm a bit baffled at how anyone can fail to comprehend the idea that healthcare can be overused. You know scarcity is a thing, right?

I live in the UK. We have the NHS and private care. NHS care is often busy and overloaded. Doctors and other employees have gone on strike, repeatedly.

Heck, emergency rooms all over the world are infamous for being overcrowded and busy, whether they have publicly funded health care or not.

Also, this is the "people getting mad at headlines" issue. One of the first things the article does is, um, say that private healthcare has a lot of wasted money.

"How does she do it? By saving trillions of dollars spent on things she claims have zero value: administrative overhead, inflated salaries of hospital executives and surgeons, and exorbitant drug-manufacturer profits.

After all, no one disputes that a lot of private spending on health care is duplicative or useless. But that doesn’t mean all of it is. By dispensing with many private-market mechanisms, Ms. Warren risks unintended consequences such as overuse of health care, fewer breakthrough drugs and potentially fewer doctors serving American patients."

And

"In a 2015 study of eight New York counties, Mr. Gruber and two co-authors found that patients forced to switch from Medicare Advantage plans, which are financed by Medicare but administered by private insurers, to regular fee-for-service Medicare increased hospital usage by 60%. Their health didn’t benefit: the hospitals they chose didn’t provide better care, and mortality didn’t go down."

In short, they went to the hospital more for no health benefit.

The article also says some docs might be paid less. And might supply less care.

"Mr. Garthwaite found that in the 1990s many pediatricians saw reimbursement rates drop when patients switched from private insurance to a new federal-state health-insurance plan for children. As a result, they spent less time with each patient and worked fewer hours."

>I know this is a dogwhistle, I just don’t know exactly what for.

Then you don't actually know it's a dogwhistle. And that concept is wildly misused anyway.

You're just looking for a reason this is not only wrong, but actively lying, so you can ignore what it's actually saying.

[needabetternamelater]

@fierceawakening

[earlgraytay]

@fierceawakening -- I think wrt the Ursula K. Le Guin quote, you might be getting hung up on some of her wording and missing what she's actually trying to convey?

The thing she's trying to get across is not "people shouldn't take joy in writing things other people have written before".

The thing she's trying to say is "it's really fucking annoying to be having a literary conversation where you are saying interesting things, and then to watch someone else get lauded for saying the most basic, baby-level version of those things because they've never taken part in your conversation."

Like, the example I'd give if I was talking about the phenomenon would be The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. (A book which I read and liked.)

In 2005, when The Book Thief came out, critics were salivating over it because it was a literary novel with Death as a Major Sympathetic Character. They thought it was fascinating that Death didn't quite understand humans but told their stories anyway! ..... and like, the thing is, is that they're not wrong? But also, SF/F authors had been using the conceit of The Grim Reaper As A Major (Sympathetic) Character since bare minimum the 'late 80s at that point, and many influential sf/f authors even characterized Death in a similar way.

I know you don't like Pratchett, but he'd been writing this stuff since the late 80s. Gaiman and Piers Anthony had been doing a similar schtick for a similar amount of time. They were already having a conversation about what Death might look like as a sympathetic major character. Some folks had more to add to that conversation than others (Anthony in particular wasn't saying anything particuarly mature about it...), but they were already having a conversation. And the critics mostly ignored that conversation, because it was happening in SF/F and therefore was intellectually bankrupt, right? RIGHT????

None of those authors could have or would have written The Book Thief, and that story deserves the critical acclaim it got. It's a damn good book. Parts of it will haunt me forever. ...But it deserved to get critical acclaim for how it added to the conversation. And at the time, critics were treating it like it was the start of the literary conversation of Death As A Major Sympathetic Character. It wasn't, by a long shot.

That's what she's complaining about. That's why she compares it to restaurant critics effusively praising buttered toast. It's not that people shouldn't be able to find innocent joy in writing Babby's First SF/F; it's that authors and critics who knee-jerk rejected SF/F were treating "literary" stories that were effectively Babby's First SF/F like they were starting brand new literary conversations, with the kind of innocent glee you'd expect from someone who'd just invented an entire genre.

She's salty and tired of having her work taken less seriously by people who don't know anything about the conversation folks in her field were already having.

[the-haiku-bot]

so, for anyone

who is like I was and not

asking, here’s a thing

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

Hey, you are not an embarrassment for not knowing how to do certain household chores/basic self-care. They do not come naturally to us. A lot of it takes practice! Maybe you had a neglectful guardian. Maybe you had one that was very coddling and never thought to teach you. Maybe you haven't lived in a place where these things were available to you or needed. Doesn't matter. It's okay to not know and far more common than you might realise.

That said, this website provides very simple instructions on how to do everyday tasks such as making your bed, using a washing machine, cooking different foods, washing dishes, taking a shower, etc. All you have to do is use the search bar to find the task you're struggling with, and it'll come up with what you need + other related how-to's:)

If you're having trouble navigating it, let me provide you with some examples:

How to clean dishes by hand

How to make your bed (with visual demonstrations of each step!)

How to fold clothes (with visual demonstrations of each step!)

How to take a shower & dry yourself off (also provides ways to shave beards, armpits, legs and genitals)

How to shave legs, armpits, beards, pubic areas, etc. (a more in-depth guide)

How to mop the floor

How to sweep the floor

How to swallow pills

How to make small talk

How to make eye contact in different situations (or how to avoid it while still looking natural)

It's also perfectly okay if these don't help or aren't appealing to you. Unfortunately, nothing helps everyone.

[desiirepath]

@thatsheetyghost @fierceawakening you guys still think voting for biden is ethical now he’s also indiscriminately signed off on bombing yemen too. how many people have to die before you consider them real and worthy of the same empathy you hold for those in the USA, or is a death in a foreign country too abstract for you

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

https://www.tumblr.com/fierceawakening/744855688703066112?source=share

what are your thoughts on this???

oh ive seen this and i have seen this narrative plenty of times before. they are usually referring to the books by sexual scientist magnus hirschfeld who did research on transsexuality (as it was understood at the time). now guess what he was? jewish. yet they insist they burned the books because of transphobia. i find that notion to be antisemitic. homosexuals were persecuted by the nazis and back then transsexuals and homosexuals were the same group. this historic revisionism is sickening and im embarrassed that takei takes part in it, as a gay man. the nazis considered everything „entartet“ that wasnt aligned with national socialism, and persecuted people „lebensunwert“ that did not fit their ideal of an aryan, physically fit man (women had to be mothers) who only produces and consumes nazi approved media and supports the nsdap goals. among the groups persecuted by the nazis were communists, democrats, prostitutes, homosexuals, roma, and so on.

they gave badges to the people they put in concentration camps.

it says:

political - criminal - emigrant - bible scientist - homosexual - asocial (in the top row)

and:

colours - backsliders - prisoners of the penal colony - jews (on the left)

and in the last part „special badges“:

jewish race desecrator - race desecrator - suspected of escape - pole - czech - member of the wehrmacht

do you see trans people here? they were not specifically persecuted. transgender was not even a thing back then. crossdressing - which again, was a thing associated with gay men, and homosexuality obviously threatens the traditional family model that the nazis wanted - would have either „earned“ you a homosexual or asocial badge. prostitutes would have been considered „asocial“ as well that is really just a category for anyone not fitting nazi ideals, political opponents, whatever.

gender was not a thing in the third reich it was literally first conceptualised by feminists later on. its really shocking how common this false narrative is and even celebrities parrot it just to be able to call gender critical people „nazis���.

[goingravager]

Uhhhh... Tumblr just randomly terminated my account?? I'm lizardywizard??

This is my fandom blog - I guess I'll be keeping in touch from here until they sort it out. I'll be very displeased if they don't return it: that's almost a decade's worth of content, plenty of which was useful to the otherkin community, plenty of which was my personal archives.

Paging mutuals: @earlgraytay @onix @fierceawakening @hapalopus @frameacloud @wolffyluna @2gecsart help me find others??

[the-haiku-bot]

This. This would be why

I’m asking exactly what

we know about that.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

Watching something about conspiracy theories like:

-that’s nazi propaganda

-that’s been proven to be not true

-you might be on to something, but you need to bring it back about two or three notches

[littjara-mirrorlake]

Trick or treat (this is @fierceawakening's main)

Happy Halloween!

You get Urabrask's anti-cop ballista!

[random-thought-depository]

@fierceawakening, I'm gonna answer this seperately so a redundant reblog of that long thread doesn't clutter my blog and response chains are easier to follow:

Why do you see “giving a generator a prompt” and “coming up with and executing an idea for a creative work” the same way? I find that baffling.

I don't think they're the same thing, but I think they're both forms of creativity, as even if they're just entering prompts the artist still had to develop the original idea.

A clarifying question I've seen is whether entering prompts into an image generation engine is more like painting or more like commissioning a painting. I guess my answer would be maybe in a sense more like the latter, but in that relationship the patron is also part of the creative process insofar as they supplied the ideas. We usually give more credit to the actual painter, because they did most of the work, and I think rightly; rich people already take the lion's share of the credit and rewards for accomplishments they merely commanded and paid others to perform far too often, the person who does most of the actual work has an interest in being recognized and compensated. But in the case of an image generation engine there is nobody equivalent to the actual painter (or, well, there is something, but it's not a person, so it has no interest in being recognized and compensated), so we might as well just straightforwardly give credit to the only person involved in the process; the machine operator.

In general, I want society to have an expansive definition of art on left-skepticism grounds, because when there's an argument about whether something is or isn't art it's usually in practice a fight over whether certain people deserve the respect and rewards that follow from being considered artists and how much society should value a particular form of culture, so a society with an expansive definition of art seems likely to be more pleasant to live in than a society with a restrictive definition of art (probable benefits I expect from an expansive definition of art: more diverse creative expression, more opportunities to be rewarded for self-expression, various fuzzy desirable social and political effects from socially legitimizing diversity and nonconformity).

[goingrampant]

I've been going through my older posts and can see that I was very rude and obnoxious. In addition to autism, I have (had?) some undiagnosed mental issues in the neighborhood of extreme paranoia and aggression on the order of a scared feral cat lashing out because it doesn't know any better. I was raised in an unhealthy environment and not taught proper self-expression. My parents are far-right libertarian types, so having received advice intended to address depression to assert myself, I ended up being aggressive and obnoxious on the order of the fedora-tipping types. I was always attracted to leftism, but my politics were fairly atrocious, an inherently flawed attempt to translate a far-right viewpoint into leftism, interpreting an attempt to build self-esteem through this flawed paradigm. I blundered through leftist tumblr like a bull in a China shop and know I caused some degree of harm to everyone I encountered.

I specifically would like to apologize to @squareroot-1 , @fierceawakening , @smitethestate , @blue-author , and others who I will tag as I think of them.

[gcu-sovereign]

Fridge logic-y prediction for MtG

There will be a bonus sheet slot in MtG’s upcoming set March of the Machines.

The bonus slot will contain creatures from throughout the multiverse that join the fray against the Phyrexians, as we have seen in box art (featuring Yahenni, who is Definitely Not a Planeswalker).  We’ve seen the brown artifact slot in Brothers War, the Mystical Archive of instants and sorceries in Strixhaven, and I think creatures could be that Limited Special Addition in MoM.  It’s also creative venue for reprints and special treatments ahead of/out of masters sets.  Lots of the Trick in Brothers’ War Limited was at first saying ‘wow these splashy rares are useless here’ and finding out the nuances to the contrary.

I’m also expecting that every pack will be collated to contain one of these mysterious Battle typed cards

@fierceawakening any contributions?

[edspear]

Happy Halloween, with some quick Decima sketches, and general doodles. Her outfit is "Grandpa Warcrimes". Or alternatively, a tiny witch.

Candy Sylex!

Urza holding his child (carelessly).

And Decima giving one of @fierceawakening's Phyrexian Critters a hug.

There were a few ideas that I might explore as more "thorough" pieces.

[stereothinker]

@fierceawakening someone may have blocked me because I Cannot reblog that graffiti post anymore. Re: reactionaries, the definition I found:

reactionary /rē-ăk′shə-nĕr″ē/

adjective

Characterized by reaction, especially opposition to progress or liberalism; extremely conservative.

Being, causing, or favoring reaction.

"reactionary movements"

Opposed to change; urging a return to a previous state.

So the Venn diagram of reactionaries and far/alt right folks is probably a lot of overlap, but not necessarily a circle?

[the-faded-1]

I continue to wonder why Megatron did what he did. A whimsy? 🔞

[desiirepath]

is that fierceawakening person still shilling for biden