#go pointless achievements

[bluastro-yellow]

get it Kim has a lot to unpack do you get it

it's imperfect I'll never polish it just take it as it is I should have put aerostatics not airplanes...

[nedlittle]

[crawls out of oklahoma! west end bootleg shaking and covered in blood]

edit: hi everyone i saw the bootleg bc a friend who purchased it was kind enough to stream over discord. i can send you the google form if you would also like to pay a couple bucks for your insides to be vapourized but i cannot actually link the bootleg

[wild-at-mind]

'There are other ways to strike other than striking' is such a WEIRD message, I cannot get past this.

[metastablephysicist]

thinking about 2023.

i read 15 books this year. not a ton, but a good amount for how many things i have going on. a good chunk of it was lesbian pulp from the fifties (i don't get why people were frothing at the mouth for beebo brinker. between the domestic violence and dog murder. well. she sucks).

didn't get any papers published, although there's one in the works. i survived another two semesters of grad school. made friends with people in my field from other universities and labs. i still need to finish this one coding project i had.

didn't do as much with the union as i would have liked to. hoping i will have more free time next year.

in that same vein, i wish i had spent more time with my friends this year. so much of my time went to work and school. i fit in some camping/hiking/etc over school breaks but i wish there had been more of it.

i did do some things i'm proud of! i got married and had a nice little party. ran a marathon. pr in the half marathon. dog training has been slow but successful.

in 2024 i'm going to try to limit time online, cook more (& different foods), and get better at going to the dentist (something i am currently very good at avoiding. hate the dentist. not the actual person but like. the experience). feels like very easy and achievable goals. we'll see :)

[holyeater]

looking into esoteric snake symbolism lately and i found it really striking and bizarre that jesus is compared directly to a serpent (traditionally associated with evil) in john 3:14 “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” this is in reference to a story in numbers where god releases a plague of flaming serpents upon a group of israelites as punishment for rebelling against him, and many are bitten and die. the people ask moses to pray to god to take away the curse and god tells moses to erect a pole with a fiery serpent coiled around it and everyone who has been bitten and looks upon it will be healed and live.

the image of the curse is the cure for the curse itself. much to think about

[sealovinq]

i need friends /gen (slight rant in tags)

[betterthingspending]

I’m starting to put post it notes on the back of my phone of all the things I think of to do before bed

so that when I wake up in the morning and forget any reasons to get up and have a life, I’ll have a handy list ready for me when I reach for the endless scroll

hoping this will help and I dont just stare at the list thinking how pointless it all is either way

giving up coffee has made this extra hard will say. coffee was a good motivator to get up and go outside for a low key, easy, convenient, achievable task (going to cafe across/down the street) that resulted in having a nice treat and no expectations, nothing more arduous. it was a good Step 1.

hard to find a replacement for that.

[ssaalexblake]

no but like, Yaz being the doctor is narratively important and at the core of the whole era’s philosophy, let alone the main point of the last episode, but lets pretend she did nothing or achieved nothing at all in her time on the show, sure. 

[nomairuins]

and also it doesnt even matter if i miraculously get a job tmrw bc we don't have a car . and im too out of shape to walk anywhere bc everything is far away . so i genuinely dont jnow what to do

[justaholeinmysoul]

Lmao i wonder what zoomers know of actual genocides happening right now in the world and what they would've boycotted back in 2003 with their own country killing children

[bixiaoshi]

anxiety works in such funny ways like why am i anxious over smth that isn't close to happening yet

[northgazaupdates]

10 February 2024

After 12 days with no updates, the PRCS announced the deaths of 6 y/o Hind Rajab and the ambulance team who volunteered to go save her. Despite the PRCS working with the IOF to coordinate safe passage for the ambulance, the ambulance was found destroyed by IOF bombs, with both volunteer crew members Yusuf Zeino and Ahmed Al-Madhoun murdered inside. Hind was murdered inside the car, where she had been trapped for hours with the bodies of her family members.

Hind’s 15 y/o cousin Layan Hamadeh had called PRCS emergency services after the car in which she and her family, including her younger cousin Hind, came under heavy gunfire by the IOF. Layan was shot to death while on the phone with PRCS emergency dispatchers, a fact which is documented via recordings of the phone call. Hind then took the phone and begged the dispatchers to send help to take her away, as the IOF was still showering the car with bullets. Ambulance crew members Yusuf Zeino and Ahmed Al-Madhoun volunteered to go rescue Hind. Dispatchers soon last contact with the child. They then lost contact with Yusef and Ahmed when the ambulance arrived near the location of the vehicle by Fares petrol station in Tal Al-Hawa.

This point cannot be emphasized enough: the PRCS worked with the IOF, getting their agreement not to attack the ambulance as it arrived at the scene. The IOF agreed, and then knowingly bombed the ambulance anyway, while also knowingly killing 6 y/o Hind inside her family’s car. They knew there was a 6 y/o child inside that car, and kept firing until they murdered her. They knew the entire time what they were doing, and lied about cooperating with emergency services in order to maximize the number of lives they could take.

The depravity and impunity of the occupation is truly boundless. Hind’s final hours were spent in absolute terror, and Yusuf and Ahmed’s courage and selflessness were rewarded with their murders. The PRCS did everything right. They coordinated with the IOF and sought their permission for the ambulance to pass, something which was already required under international law. The IOF abused this attempt at cooperation by lying about their compliance, then deliberately murdering Hind, Yusuf, and Ahmed, in addition to Layan and her entire family.

We write this update in tears, having hoped and prayed for a different outcome like everyone else. This round of aggression by the IOF has already seen unimaginable cruelty, suffering, and impunity. The complete, deliberate, and flagrant violation of international law and human decency is a stain on the conscience of the Global North and every president, staffer, soldier, and bureaucrat who made this happen. May the recorded voices of Layan and Hind, begging for rescue before dying alone, haunt them for the rest of their days.

Remember Hind, Layan, Yusuf, and Ahmed. Do not let despair consume you. Fight for them, for a permanent ceasefire, for accountability, and for whatever justice can be achieved, even if it seems small and pointless. Tell the world what the occupation has done, share the recordings and the updates from people on the ground. No matter how bleak things are, it is always worthwhile to tell the truth and fight for what’s right.

Keep Hind’s mother, grandfather, and surviving relatives, and the families of Yusuf and Ahmed in your hearts.

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Recordings: Layan, Hind

Our prior post

[forgotten-daydreamer]

why do i have to be both ugly and dumb. why didn't i get at least the looks or the brains. why.

[homunculus-argument]

Was talking with my therapist about how I get myself some sense of achievement in everyday life, and I told her that I occasionally give myself little secret self-appointed tasks, where the only goal is to manage to achieve some completely random, pointless, arbitrary goal without anyone else finding out or asking me about the whatever weird shit I am currently in the middle of doing. There's no punishment for failing to do so, I don't dread any kind of an outcome, nor is there any other reward for succeeding the task, than managing to succeed in it - a little challenge with no other goal or purpose than being a little challenge.

She said that this is very interesting, and asked me to name an example of one of these quests that I've given myself. I froze, drawing blank, since my current arbitrary goal is to see how long I can go on without having to explain to her what furries are.

[mesetacadre]

this might be a silly question, but. ive recently learned more about the devastating effects of sanctions on countries like cuba, dprk, or venezuela, and how much unnecessary suffering they cause among the population, especially when it comes to food or medicine shortages. but then bds also calls for sanctions against israel, and im wondering, is there any meaningful difference between that and the sanctions already imposed by the US on other countries? i feel a bit hypocritical when i argue against sanctions while at the same time supporting bds, i feel like they are very different situations with different outcomes but i lack the understanding to really grasp how they are different, if that makes any sense

Sanctions are the systematic blockade of all or certain sectors of trade under military or economic threat by the sanctioner (mostly just the USA in recent history) to any potential agents who might try to ignore the sanction. These sanctions typically include things like medical supplies, food if the country is dependent on imports (like most countries who get sanctioned), electricity, fuel, both light and heavy industry, agricultural products and machines, the global financial system, and other such key sectors. These sanctions, overwhelmingly, only serve to impoverish the country, create undue suffering and political strife. This political strife/instability is usually the main goal of sanctions, to destabilize the target government. However, this political instability more often than not does not result in a magical restoration of "democracy" or "human rights", it usually leads the country down a path of further isolationism and political violence that only worsens its general situation. It also makes it much easier for factions like ISIS to gain popularity and support, since people are desperate. Sanctions are inhumane measures which only makes a country suffer for no good reason. The sanctioners know this, they don't care, and I'd wager that suffering is often the actual point of these sanctions. What has the 60 year old blockade achieved in Cuba? It has only caused pointless poverty, and the stated goal of the sanctions, which is to ultimately remove the communist government, has failed, is failing, and Cuba is managing to make due with what they have.

BDS call for sanctions mostly in regards to military equipment and related products/services, for NATO to stop aiding the genocide, or the banning of Israel from international events such as the olympics. No Israeli will ever go hungry because they no longer get European-made ordinance or because they don't get to participate in Eurovision. This is what BDS says in their Sanctions and governments campaign (which is behind two menus, this is also not the main focus of BDS, by far):

The BDS movement calls for sanctions against Israel, similar to the sanctions that were imposed against apartheid South Africa. These sanctions could include a military embargo, an end to economic links and the cutting of diplomatic ties. In the meantime, the BDS movement is calling for states to take steps to meet their legal obligations not to be complicit in the commission of particular Israeli crimes and not to provide recognition, aid or assistance that help Israel maintain its regime of settler colonialism, apartheid.. This includes, for example, the obligation for states to immediately end to all trade that sustains illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the suspension of free trade agreements and other bilateral agreements with Israel.

Notice the greater emphasis on military and diplomatic ties, and how economic/trade sanctions are only called for when it «sustains illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory». Sure, this will (if it is ever adopted by Israel's significant trade partners) cause some suffering for the poor illegal settlers who had just moved into their shiny new apartment blocks built atop acres of land that sustained the surrounding Palestinian villages. The mere existence of these settlements cause more suffering than any sanction could ever cause.

Calling for these sanctions against Israel, which again, don't even come from comparable agents, are both less harmful towards the total population of Israel, and occur in a completely different context. I'm not going to pretend I care about the wellbeing of settlers whose houses didn't even exist 10 years ago. If these sanctions ever do occur in a significant enough scale (dubious), and those settlers don't want to find themselves in a food desert because Carrefour closed all their stores in the west bank, they shouldn't have moved into land stolen from a people facing genocide in the first place. We're also wagering hypothetical and non-global suffering against the now more than 100,000 dead Palestinians in Gaza in the past year, not even counting those who died ever since the first Nakba.

Like BDS points out, these types of grassroots and targeted boycotts/sanctions worked in South Africa, and the white South Africans didn't even suffer that much. Wager these short-lived and targeted sanctions against these other half-century long sanctions sustained by the US' strongarm policy that have prevented basically anything from getting into Cuba or the DPRK.

While those two things are both called sanctions, they have radically different objectives, methods, range, timescale, and character. I can't reiterate this enough, the North Korean collective farmer and the Israeli settler in the west bank have nothing in common when it comes to their position. Only one of them is complicit in genocide through their own actions, only one of them has any degree of blame, and only one of their governments is actually doing anything that warrants any kind of international action. And again, the BDS strategy focuses much more on military sanctions. Let's also be practical for a second, and acknowledge that the US is never going to withdraw their support for Israel, and especially will never sanction Israel. Israel is simply never going to face the same kind of sanctions that Venezuela or Cuba are facing, nor with the same severity, nor with the same restrictions on products essential for life.

[pluttskutt]

I think it's just about accepting I'll never do stuff. I'll never learn a 3rd language, I'll never work and live in another country, I'll probably never even travel to another country, and I won't get married, or visit a disney park.

I won't ever go on that train journey throughout the british isles (train and boat ig but you get the gist), and I won't get a dog.

It's sad, yeah, because there's nothing I've ever wanted more since I was a child than to study abroad and move around wherever my work took me. But it has been made abundantly clear to me that none of the things I want I will get.

I'm sorry for the girl that had so many dreams and hopes for the future. You didn't grow up into someone who could make them come true.

I'm tired. I'd like to go now.