#i don't know do i need to say explicitly that i think the us healthcare system is fucked? it's eugenics by capitalism. it's horrendous.

[notasapleasure]

Kay, thanks for this link, reading the essay was almost quasi-religious to this lifelong atheist. It's an absurdly optimistic piece and all the more rebellious for it, I think.

I could quote so much more from it, but perhaps this is the most relevant bit right now...

For radicals, fetishizing the guillotine is just like fetishizing the state: it means celebrating an instrument of murder that will always be used chiefly against us.

Those who have been stripped of a positive relationship to their own agency often look around for a surrogate to identify with—a leader whose violence can stand in for the revenge they desire as a consequence of their own powerlessness. In the Trump era, we are all well aware of what this looks like among disenfranchised proponents of far-right politics. But there are also people who feel powerless and angry on the left, people who desire revenge, people who want to see the state that has crushed them turned against their enemies.

Reminding “tankies” of the atrocities and betrayals state socialists perpetrated from 1917 on is like calling Trump racist and sexist. Publicizing the fact that Trump is a serial sexual assaulter only made him more popular with his misogynistic base; likewise, the blood-drenched history of authoritarian party socialism can only make it more appealing to those who are chiefly motivated by the desire to identify with something powerful.

-Anarchists in the Trump Era

Now that the Soviet Union has been defunct for almost 30 years—and owing to the difficulty of receiving firsthand perspectives from the exploited Chinese working class—many people in North America experience authoritarian socialism as an entirely abstract concept, as distant from their lived experience as mass executions by guillotine. Desiring not only revenge but also a deus ex machina to rescue them from both the nightmare of capitalism and the responsibility to create an alternative to it themselves, they imagine the authoritarian state as a champion that could fight on their behalf. Recall what George Orwell said of the comfortable British Stalinist writers of the 1930s in his essay “Inside the Whale”:

“To people of that kind such things as purges, secret police, summary executions, imprisonment without trial etc., etc., are too remote to be terrifying. They can swallow totalitarianism because they have no experience of anything except liberalism.”

[stupidlittlespirit]

as a stanley girl, there is SO MUCH MORE ford content. and it's 100% because he is "more handsome" (read it as the journal 3 passage where he writes "what is a silver fox??? people are calling me that......"

I also have another take: I think it also has to do with their body type. ford doesn't have a protuding belly and looks slimmer, while stan has a big belly, doesn't hide it, and when he does, he explicitly tells it's a girdle. cowards. afraid of this old man's delicious stomach 🫦🫦🫦

This is actually a really interesting point that I hadn't considered before.

I'm going to use this as a chance to analyse because I think it's quite interesting and I can't shut up about these old fuckers. Sorry.

And by the way, Ford repeatedly being referred to as being 'hot' always made me laugh because they're literally twins and it would piss me tf off if I was Stan.

(I am also speaking in big, broad brush strokes about the way in which they're received by the audience and portrayed in the show here, by the way. Very generally.)

The main difference between them I think is that Stan is portrayed as someone who 'didn't take care of himself' because he smoked heavily, drank, and was generally portrayed as quite 'grimy'.

But I would hasten to add that being homeless and having a rough life will make you like that to some extent, and that's not an effect of 'not taking care of yourself' so much as it is one of having to survive in any shape you can.

To be clear, I'm not saying you're bad or 'grimy' if you are/have been those things, I'm saying people often portray or view you as such when you've really just had to adapt and be like that to survive. You'll develop certain ways of being because of the people you're around (who usually tend to be hardened themselves) or even the people that you're not around, in the sense of social isolation. You'll probably drink or smoke or do drugs to cope, and all of those things age you dramatically. As does stress and trauma. You don't have anywhere to shower or stay clean. You don't have anywhere to get healthcare. You don't have anything. You lose access to so much that most people take for granted.

In terms of physicality:

Ford had to work out and try to take of himself to an extent because he needed to stay on the run and was moving around a lot. I hold this hc that interdimensional travel takes a HUGE toll on the human body and, like an astronaut would, it was imperative for him to stay in good shape or else he physically wouldn't be able to go on. He also had the astronomical intelligence level to craft food sources or find alternatives, and would have help from other beings along the way. I don't for a second think he survived entirely on his own and we do know that's true because he tells us so in the journal.

Stan survived in a very different way. He did survive totally alone. He had no one at all. He was likely depressed and being homeless meant he had no money, so, for example, he would have lived on a shitty diet of whatever he could get his hands on. When you're dirt poor, calories matter. Like, a lot. He never would have known where his next meal was coming from. He'd have been packing on weight with dogshit food and he'd have had to do it fast, but then you grow into bad dietary habits and it becomes harder to shift off when you become stationary or more consistent in income.

So he would have gained weight and kept it on like a life preserve, but he also wouldn't have had much need to work out to get rid of it once he was more settled, plus depression in general can add to weight gain, too.

Both of them are portrayed as quite stocky guys, as well. They're very broad and chunky in general, so their body type is kind of inclined to hold weight like that too.

Personality wise, Ford has traits that are probably seen as more 'admirable' or attractive by a general audience, in the sense that he is intelligent (booksmart, at least) and driven, he's noble in his cause and he's successful. He's portrayed as being 'proper'.

Stan, however, is portrayed as having traits that are inherently negative such as that he's dumb (he's not, he's very street smart and that IS intelligence, don't let anyone tell you it isn't!), he's a criminal, he's rough around the edges and coarse, he's kind gross, he's a failure, etc. He's portrayed at large as a Loser. His redeeming quality is that eventually, he's considered loveable.

I think it's the combo of their looks/bodies and their personalities seals the deal for a lot of people. One is seen as slim and smart and successful, whereas the other is fat and 'grimy' and a cantankerous ass.

We don't have to like someone to fuck them, but generally we do need to be attracted physically to them to fuck them.

Ford is seen as unlikeable in personality, whereas Stan is seen as unlikeable in looks. Stan is just emotionally more redeemable because we see his redemption and more of his backstory. Ford is just considered by a lot of people as big and sad and fuckable lmao

I, personally, don't think that when you truly look at them both in the light, that you can boil them down to those few traits. They are very complicated and layered, and while they do retain those points, the above is kind of 'how do they seem at a passing glance' or 'how do they seem from an immediate attraction point of view'.

Anyway, I do agree that Stan's body type and personality is viewed less favourably to Ford's because he's put forward as being grotesque, and for one thing, fat is generally accepted as something that equals being gross.

That's not to say I'm waving a stick being like 'waaah this was done on purpose it's fatphobic that they made Stan like that', I think their designs are purposeful but that they're done like that to show to an audience that Stan has lived a sedentary life since he stopped being homeless whereas Ford has been in motion constantly for 30 years.

I have no idea about how character design works, I'm thinking about how they'd look if I were writing about them as my original characters and I needed to portray their personalities/lives to my audience without showing them too much of their backstories up front.

Anyways, I think they're both dreamboats. Fat or thin. Don't give a fuck. I need them.

[fullyarmoredbattlesturgeon]

Could I have some resources please on the claim that under anarchism, disabled people would have no aid, especially insulin, etc. I'm an aspiring anarchist but I hear anti anarchists say this stuff and cannot find anything to rebutt their claims or proof of it! I want to be an anarchist, but I do not want disabled people such as myself to suffer under it if that's a true claim

here's a really good all-rounder for you, with sections on both disability and healthcare.

that's such an alien thought to me these days because so many of the anarchists i know are disabled, guess i forgot that there's people out there that think like that.

i gave ya a link, but im gonna share some of my own thoughts anyways.

the thing (that most of us(looking at you, ancaps)) are fighting for is explicitly a society built around mutual aid and accessibility for all.

why would we stop caring and providing for those around us, without the state telling us to?

if the state goes away, my mom and i will still mow and clean up my blind neighbor's lawn and shovel part of his sidewalk. If the state goes away, my sister is still going to watch the dog for our other neighbor who's a busy single mother and can't always be around. if the state goes away, i'm still going to be looking out for my houseless friends and trying to get them whatever help or support they need.

if that can be true on a personal level, why can't it be true on a organizational and professional level? would doctors magically stop being doctors? would people stop making prosthetics and mobility aids?

so why would insulin suddenly dissappear overnight?

does the president like, secrete it, or something?

no, it's made by relatively normal people who make it because it's their job to make it. in a more horizontally organized society, the only thing that would really change is that their workplace would be democratized, and in the context of a gift economy (or something similar) the insulin would be seen not as a product, but something to be given, just as food or water would be.

"from each according to their ability, to each according to their need", right?

care is not something magically handed down from the heavens, it is something that people *do*.

*we* care for us, and to some extent or another, we always have.

how that care is *organized* though, is a political question, and this is what anarchism seeks to change - under capitalism, care is generally something that you either have to pay for, is handed down through "charity", or is controlled and parceled out by the state.

authoritarian communists want to hand everything over to the state, and simply assume that the state will care for us once it controls everything. that nationalization is an unalloyed good, simply because the state ain't the bosses - making it inherently good since the bosses are inherently bad.

on the other hand, a lot of people have this stereotype of anarchists as unorganized, rowdy bandits - but it's not that anarchists don't believe in organization, rather we believe that we should organize as horizontally, freely and democratically that we can. that is to say, anarchists tend to be... less *optimistic* about depending solely on the good graces of an all-powerful state, regardless of what 'flavor' that power comes in.

we take care of us, right?

well, except for ancaps i guess, they think that everyone should just be thrown to the wolves. it's no wonder why everyone thinks the ancaps are clowns.

bit rambly, but hope that helps. this isn't exactly something I'm well-versed in, but even i can defend against arguments as simple as this.

oh and hey, thanks for asking! hope ya have a nice day.

[kuiperblog]

Patrick McKenzie on "vaccine hesitancy"

From the latest episode of Patrick McKenzie's podcast Complex Systems:

One point about vaccine hesitancy that I think is broadly underappreciated: Consider the Pell Grant program in the United States. Pell Grants are essentially free money for college. Despite that, we never hear about “Pell Grant hesitancy,” yet every college knows it has to do a sales job to explain this to prospective students. For example, they’ll say: "There are various ways to fund college. A loan you have to pay back. A grant, like a Pell Grant, is free money you don’t pay back. Here’s an application you need to fill out, and then the money will arrive." Even though it’s free money, colleges still invest in explaining and promoting it because people don’t automatically understand the program. Now think about the COVID vaccine rollout. A lot of people, particularly in the professional-managerial class, assumed the vaccine was the most anticipated product release in human history. After a year of lockdowns and trauma, it seemed obvious that no one would need convincing to take it. But that assumption was wrong. Much of what was perceived as vaccine hesitancy wasn’t driven by anti-science or deep-seated opposition. It was more like, No one has sat me down and explained why this benefits me. Many people assumed, If the vaccine were truly important, someone—my doctor, a public health official—would have told me by now. This wasn’t well-calibrated to the reality of the U.S. healthcare system, which, for better or worse, didn’t believe it needed to sell the vaccine to individuals. Now, of course, there was a partisan and politicized element to vaccine hesitancy. And it wasn’t a straightforward left-versus-right issue—it had a bit of a horseshoe effect, pulling in groups from across the spectrum. But a significant portion of the hesitancy stemmed from a lack of direct, clear communication, not outright opposition.

I was in the group of people who were eagerly anticipating the rollout of the vaccines in 2021. Looking through my message history in several group chats, I can find that at the start of April 2021, I repeatedly broadcast a message to my local friends to the effect of:

The vaccine is available to everyone age 16 or higher on [date]

VACCINES ARE FREE FOR EVERYONE and YOU DO NOT NEED HEALTH INSURANCE to get injected FOR FREE.

Additionally, there are two earlier tiers of groups that are eligible to get their vaccine on [date -14 days] and [date -7 days]; here is a link to see if you're part of one of the eligible groups

I received numerous replies to the effect of, "thank you for sharing this information with me; I just booked an appointment to get vaccinated, which is something that I would not have done in the counterfactual world where I did not see your message." (I do not think the person who lives in that counterfactual world -- and did not schedule the vaccination appointment -- fits the typical profile of what people think of "vaccine hesitant.")

There is probably a world in which these people got this same information from a public health official or a doctor. (Perhaps that world has higher state capacity and more efficacious institutions.) Instead, these people live in a world where they got that message in the group chat that used to be used to organize board game meetups.

The point that "the general rollout in mid April 2021 is for everyone 16 and up" seemed to be a piece of information that people got from me that they didn't get from other messaging channels.

Another critical point that several people appreciated having explicitly spelling out for them was "everyone can get jabbed for free; yes, this includes the uninsured, or people who don't know if they're insured because they're 25 and maybe that means they're on their parents' insurance but they kinda neglected to figure out that whole thing but also embarrassed to ask about it.

This was a vital bit of signal that seemed to get dropped from some of the messaging that made it to their ears, and it rhymes a bit with a parenthetical remark Patrick made outside the podcast audio:

You can understand why people are skeptical [of Pell Grants], too! “As if the federal government would give me tens of thousands of dollars, for free, with basically no checking. That certainly hasn’t matched any other experience in my life!”

Patrick also has a parenthetical note about why the US healthcare system needs to play a marketing role in "selling" the vaccine to individuals, despite their belief that that this was not necessary:

Pharmacies were the primary site that the vaccine was physically delivered at, and pharmacies are not specialized in demand generation for drugs. The pharma industry expects physicians to do that; that is why the physicians get visits by attractive people explaining the benefits of the new things on offer.

Two practical implications:

Society benefits from having functional institutions that can do things at scale, like informing the public of information that they need to know as a matter of public safety

In the absence of institutions, one of the fallbacks for important information making its way to the people who need it is "group chat message from the person who organizes the board game meetup I attended a year ago." This might practically describe you, dear reader. You may not wish to be burdened with this responsibility, but this is one mechanism by which you can be part of the change which you wish to see in the world.

I participated in this (admittedly small-scale) messaging effort in part thanks to the example set by other participants in local group chats which I am a part of, which have historically been the way that I have learned information, like "There is currently a boil order for [neighborhood]; here is a webpage with a map to see if you are effective. (Also, in case 'boil order' is a new phrase to you: there are worries about water contamination due to [reasons] and as such the health department is recommending that you boil any water that comes out of your tap before drinking it, even if it 'looks normal.')"

I feel that parenthetical point bears repeating. One point of frustration I personally heard from multiple people in 2020 was the number of occasions when public officials issued an order like "shelter in place" without further elaboration for the benefit of people who weren't already familiar with that precise piece of jargon.

[walks-the-ages]

You convinced me to vote for Jill Stein. I was feeling so defeated about voting no preference or not voting but I'm a single issue voter on genocide I guess and couldn't bring myself to vote for a party and administration that was perpetuating it. So it was kind of liberating to vote third party and vote FOR something instead of just against something. All those people saying just vote and some of those same people saying you shouldn't vote third party, it's like does my vote count or doesn't it? So hypocritical. If you're not willing to vote for something better than what's the point? And the Dems haven't moved left and haven't done all the things in the last four years they're promising to do in the next four so again, we need to let go of that dream that we can "move them left." Anyway I guess just thanks for being thought provoking on this issue!

yep, last two elections I was so full of anxiety the entire time, absolutely terrified of what was gonna happen come election night and after...

but this time, after seeing a full entire year of genocide, of learning more and more about US history and the things our government has done and explicitly continues to do under both democrats AND republicans, I voted third party for the first time for the Green Party and I will probably continue to vote Green for the rest of my life, honestly.

I did Early Voting in my state, and here on election day, I am calm, knowing one of the main two is going to win, but knowing that I am also one of the people who won't go down in the history books as embracing the genocide.

I'm doing what I can to help, both online (signal boosting) and in my local community .

The people who spend their entire life frothing at the mouth about "we just need to vote blue no matter who just one more time! The canidate doesn't need to be perfect!They can commit genocide even! They just need to be wearing a blue hat while doing it!" every 4 years online.... I really can't say that I confidently believe these people engage with their local communities.

and yeah, you hit the nail on the head.

"Every vote counts! But no, don't vote like that! That doesn't count!"

"Every vote counts only when its in favor of my blue-hat-wearing genocidaire, any vote for literally any third party is just you literally voting for the red-hats! Ignore the complete lack of logic in this statement! Don't even ask if conservatives voting for a conservative third party are also somehow voting for the red-hats, or if by my logic, their vote is magically going to the blue-hats when they vote yellow-hats instead of red!"

Vote Scolders and genocide apologists really need to come to grips with the reality that if you're constantly, for almost a decade now, being "forced" by a two party system to "choose the lesser evil" and that "lesser" evil continues to push right wing policies, lose national protections for abortion and queer rights including trans healthcare, and is literally currently committing genocide and bombing multiple countries who actually try to stop the genocide, and embrace literal modern day hitler by inviting Netanyahu, a literal war criminal with an arrest warrent out for him in multiple countries to come speak directly to congress where the "good, lesser-evil" party gave him over 20 standing ovations for spouting genocidal rhetoric....... uh, first of all, you're not voting for a 'lesser' evil of any kind, you're just voting for an evil you think will be slightly more convenient for you, and you will happily throw entire nations into concentration and death camps if it makes you feel slightly more cushy and secure and two --

we don't actually live in a democracy if we are "forced" by a two-party system to vote for two equally genocidal fucks who don't represent any of their constituents and live on lies, lies, and more lies.

Democrats continually refuse to even consider raising the minimum wage and happily embrace funneling millions of dollars to Cop City so we can even further militarize the police here so they can better kill people every single day, while Trump gains voters by making wild promises that he's gonna make overtime be paid out in triple pay instead of time and a half that he, clearly, being a fascist billionaire fuck, never intends to fufill, but sounds good to the people who have been voting Democrat their entire life but never seen any material benefit from it (and yes, that is a real example a coworker gave me of why they were initially considering voting for trump, but then decided they're just not going to vote at all because none of the candidates actually feel good for them, and their family is split down the middle calling anyone who doesn't vote for their favorite side a traitor, ) etc.

Anyways, thank you for the anon, I am glad I could be of help!

Endlessly voting for "The lesser evil" just leads to anxiety and despair; actually putting your vote in for a candidate you want to vote for is one of the most freeing experiences possible if all you've been old enough to vote in is these constant Doomsday Elections.

There's a lot of ways to get started making connections in your local community, and the one I have started with and inspired many others to as well, is to simply start a garden, learn how to grow food and save seeds, and start sharing that with first your direct surrounding neighbors, then your neighborhood via online groups, and beyond! I've gotten many people into growing their own food and then beyond to sharing their harvests just by simply informing people "if you are buying colored bell peppers or tomatoes, or bags of dried beans, you can literally just plant all of those seeds" and watching their faces become full of wonder.

Oh and if you want a theme song for voting third party after voting for the lesser evil all this time lol:

anyways for anyone who hasn't voted yet, here's Jill Stein with the Green Party's ballot access map:

and here is their platform:

To all the "Vote Blue No Matter Who" crowd who actually do care about Gaza, but you're absolutely terrified of this election because of what everyone has been saying about Trump ending the world if Democrats don't win:

Remember, you are allowed to change your mind.

No one else can see who you voted for.

You do not have to decide 5 months in advance of an election that you're going to be voting for x and then have that decision written in stone.

The only time its too late to change your vote is after you've already cast your ballot.

You can go into that voting booth thinking you're gonna vote for x, and then see the screen or the paper and realize you really, really do not want to support the ongoing genocide.

After you have cast your vote, if someone asks who you voted for and you don't wanna say you voted for the Green Party........ you can literally just lie. Especially if its going to protect you from predatory friends or family who are part of the doomerist "vote blue no matter what they do" crowd.

Same goes for Republicans, or people who think they have to vote for Trump because their entire family is strict MAGA supporters.

You do not have to vote for Trump. You can vote for whoever you want, including third party. No one needs to know who you are voting for. If your maga friends and family demand to know if you voted for Trump too, you can..... just say yes.

No one is obligated to know who you voted for. If you want to vote for a party that is actually trying to make a difference in how much shit there is in the world, but you need to protect yourself from friends and family, you can simply lie and say you voted for their favorite candidate "of course!"

[jojossillywalk]

Mohammed Avdol's Knowledge Analysis: Part 1 The Stand Sickness

I've been thinking about Avdol's base of knowledge in the series. I know what he was given no visual backstory (which is annoying), but a wealth of information and theories can be mined from the things that he knows when the context that he learned them in is questioned, and I sort of wanted to have a place to go over it.

Here, I want to store some information that can be inferred through (1) what Avdol knows about the Stand sickness, (2) methods of getting the Stands and Avdol's own assumptions about Stand manifestation, and (3) addressing the fact that (assuming Hermit Purple didn't somehow scry it) Avdol knows that killing Dio will halt the progress of the Stand illness.

Here's another wall of textTM on the assassins

Under the cut, in order, addresses the symptoms of the illness, Avdol's theory on how you survive it, Avdol's knowledge of how Stands manifest period, and the killing Dio cure! There's stuff that's up to interpretation/impossible to tell, but it's fun to goof with for headcanons!

Spoilers for part 5, sort of (trust me part 5 is relevant). I think Avdol Knew Some Stuff.

Disclaimer, this is obnoxiously long :')

Also if anyone else would like to comment, add, or make fun of me for a Blaringly Obvious Thing that i'm missing, please do because hehehehe theoriy. Also the Stand illness is fundamentally a weird thing, I'm not going in thinking this is watertight

The Symptoms

"It's currently only her back, but eventually, like a plant, that Stand is going to slowly overtake her entire body. She will suffer from a high fever and many different illnesses, fall into a coma, and die."

"It will appear to normal people that she is dying from an unknown illness, and no matter how skilled the doctor, they cannot cure it. No one, not me, not you, is capable of doing anything about it."

He finishes up by stating that this usually takes 50 days.

There's a lot to unpack in just that one statement. First of all, there is the establishment of the fact that this isn't like some assassins, where he tends to say "heard of" or "heard rumors of".

Avdol explicitly witnessed these "many" instances, the Japanese he uses is "目撃" (mokugeki) which is explicit in that meaning.

So, over numerous instances, Avdol was present for the progression of the illness. This means:

He was in a position to identify the symptoms, see the growth of the Stand from small and on the back to the point where it engulfs the entire body, and he knows the general timeframe.

He knows how the surrounding individuals will react.

He knows that "not even the most skilled physicians" can provide a cure. I don't know if this is stretching it, but the phrasing, "どんな," (sort of "no matter who/what") definitely reads off like he's also witnessed multiple skilled doctors' attempts at treatment.

Sidenote! There's an older term used by physicians called "the great imitator," which refers to illnesses that feature so many nonspecific symptoms that they're often confused for other things (mono's a big one)- if Avdol was around a lot of physicians, he's probably seen the illness get misidentified a lot.

Impossible to tell whether or not he was the sole other Stand user present, but provided he was, you don't need to work in healthcare to understand how horrifically emotionally and psychologically isolating that is.

Finally, "No one, not me, not you, is capable of doing anything about it."

So he was repeatedly in a position where he was able to closely observe someone who was dying of a progressively worsening illness over the course of fifty days, observed their symptoms, how other people saw it, and knew which doctors were treating them (as well as the skill of that doctor).

Thus, he had to have been pretty close to afflicted individuals for extended periods of time. Was Avdol the one who sought out treatment from "the best doctors" for them to begin with? Was he trusted enough to be present until the end? Or did he watch and act from afar? Were they in his personal life, strangers, or some of column A and B?

Furthermore: we don't actually know the extent to which he was able to communicate what was happening to people.

If Avdol really was the only one who knew, then there's some moral dilemma.

In the event that Avdol told people and provided proof with his Stand:

What exactly is preventing people from refusing to believe him, or even questioning his certainty that it's the same thing that he has? They literally cannot see it. If Avdol makes that call, he's put in the position that he's now entirely relied on to observe this.

If he was at a point where he still hadn't accepted that there was no cure, he's entirely relied on to save this person in a position where failure is inevitable.

The people around Avdol are made aware that there's just Invisible Powers out there, it killed this person, while Avdol can utilize it. There's an infinite array of possibilities for how people around him would react. Furthermore, they have to walk around in broad daylight knowing that forever.

That said, it's not all negative! In a circumstance where someone just died and no one knew why, Avdol very well could have provided a sense of closure. He is able to tell people that it wasn't their fault. Still probably very difficult for him, but the ideal circumstance does give closure.

Etc, etc. So, if he didn't tell people, or he wasn't believed (I think maybe less likely):

Point blank, he's the only one who can see an inevitable death where other people still have hope.

He knew which doctors were doing what. Very well could have watched treatments that he's seen fail before.

The situation comes with a lot of guilt, and you're caught between two very difficult situations: telling people is risky, not telling them is miserable on every single side.

We really have no idea what he did, because we see stuff in SDC that could back up him doing either: Avdol has a very strong moral compass, and when he's emotionally overwhelmed, it's very hard for him to just sit on it. That said, he obscures and stays silent where he feels it's necessary, or if he feels that people will be put in danger. I think he definitely wanted to tell people.

That said, his bio does describe him as "great at leading and attracting other people" and that "peers are easily persuaded by him." That could definitely come in handy for navigating those circumstances- people are canonically inclined to trust him!

Whatever the case, considering what we've seen of Avdol's character and how he responds to suffering, I think it's not too far of a stretch to say that he wasn't coming out of the gate accepting that there was just no cure. Avdol, at some point in his life, realized that there was no cure.

And we'd know more if we got a fucking backst-

Anyways, some other notes!

Avdol knows how to identify this quick. He does that little check on her back to make sure it's incorporeal, which seems innocuous at first, but honestly it reminds me of how a first responder checks for breathing?

It seems obvious, but the speed of that response speaks to experience: he does this immediately and is aware that this isn't an attack from another user (because someone with limited experience literally has no reason not to assume that).

Additionally, Avdol alerted Joseph of this possibility before the plot began (we know because Joseph is concerned about Holly being able to see Stands, and then is like "AAAHHHGHGHH I KNEW IT WE FUCKED UP!!!"). What's likely is that when Avdol became aware of Joseph's manifestation, he was like. "Hm. So I Have Good News And Bad News."

Joseph's prior knowledge, which he presumably has due to an explicit warning from Avdol, has some interesting implications. In the event that Avdol alerted him, you can infer that Avdol already knew that if someone gains a Stand, you run the risk of it shooting down to descendants with some illness cropping up. I will come back to this!

Final fun fact, Avdol runs on the assumption that your Stand, on first manifestation, isn't showing up that clearly. Makes sense, but it tells us that he seems to have been present some first time manifestations. Again, I will come back to this.

Survivability Theories

"Stands are controlled by the user's mental strength, and move using their fighting instincts. Holly is a very gentle and peaceful person and so she lacks the strength to resist Dio's curse. She is powerless to control her Stand. That's why her Stand is working against her and becoming an attacker."

Certainly a theory. The take ever!

Disclaimer, I'm referencing Parts 4+5 here and I know this is a very early statement on the nature of Stands, but I'm shooting off theories that are purely in universe.

The theory that your chances of survival are dependent on temperament is not held by Avdol alone. In Part 4, Keicho makes this offhanded, vaguely similar statement while he's stabbing that serial killer with this arrows, "The worse the person/criminal, the more they possess the potential for this power Dio called a 'Stand'-" etc etc.

Keicho (and by extension, Dio, who I imagine picked that up from Enya as she taught him about Stands) links control of a Stand to outright malice, while Avdol seems to tie it to "mental strength" and "fighting instincts". There's frankly numerous ways of interpreting those traits, his specific meaning is anyone's guess. The contrasting words he uses for Holly's personality are also kind of ???

Whatever he means by "mental strength" and "fighting instincts," Avdol separates these from being a "very gentle and peaceful" person. His phrasing in Japanese also frames this causally.

This isn't as damning as one would initially assume!

The reliability of that theory is up for interpretation. Avdol was doing Exposition here, so it can be taken as the Jojoverse going "hey, fyi, people who use these have a tendency to Kick Your Ass," however! I like to headcanon that this is something akin to a weird form of sampling bias.

Avdol and Enya are the ones in SDC who have this theory on why your Stand decides whether or not to Kick Its Own Ass.

These two are heavily exposed to Stand using assassins, albeit for very different reasons. I think there's a possibility that Avdol might have developed this theory because a lot of the Stand users who he's come into contact with (and is likely to come into contact with again) would snipe you for vending machine money.

There's also the possibility that the causal statement is a little backwards- if someone glued an invisible bazooka to your soul, you have been given access to a tool set that you did not have prior. Your options have expanded!

I'm not saying Everyone Who Gains A Stand Turns Violent, but if you get a combatively capable Stand, you have the option to act where you may not have previously had an option to begin with.

Furthermore, people going Absolutely Wild with the arrow seem to go out of their way to target people because they're literally seeking recruits in a fight.

(And like. I'm positive that Avdol might know this/have considered it, put a pin in this.)

There's not a lot to work on the other end, because Jojo's is explicitly a series about Wonderfully Dressed People Beating The Living Shit Out Of Each Other, but a few things back up the interpretation of a weird sampling bias!

Tonio, who is stated to have "developed" his Stand while he was doing research for his cooking- if he wasn't so specialized, there's a real possibility that he wouldn't have learned what the fuck Pearl Jam is.

Josuke came down with the Stand illness. "He was a kid when he got it though" yeah but Death 13, Hierophant Green, Magician's Red, Silver Chario-

Multiple Part 4 Stands are just "this is my Actual Job. just my Job it is my Day Job my 9-5" Avdol's tracking skills presumably augment his ability to track assassins and the illness, but we don't really know how he does outside of that.

Koichi would have been killed by the arrow, but he uses Echoes just fine once he gets on the horse.

In contrast, Cheap Trick is a Stand that murders you as a function, nothing to do with the illness.

Superfly.

Notorious BIG, allegedly created from residual hatred.

Holly was tanking her Stand trying to murder her for like 3 days before it literally knocked her down. I don't know what "mental strength" really implies, but I don't think it's fair to suggest that Holly lacks it.

You could go so far as to say that Holly and Avdol are a little similar, in that they both have gone, "I'm Fine And Dandy Until I'm So Very Not."

That kind of leads into what I was keeping a pin in- the "mental strength/fighting instinct" view is probably a little complicated.

Avdol has survived something that he's seen kill many people, we know how Avdol responds to bystander death (he won't melt that train track to save himself or Joseph, makes sure people noticed when he finally could). He also has come into contact with a lot of violent Stand users, and we know he's aware of the deaths that they are responsible for.

If he built that theory from a combination of those experiences, it opens up for the interpretation that Avdol himself has a weird relationship with it.

Possibly, you can infer that Avdol believes that he himself only survived because he's "Mentally Strong With Fighting Instincts." In fact, he obligates himself to be that way- one example is his on screen tendency to try to force himself to accept potential death of an ally (letting Polnareff go with "I'm just disappointed"/making that promise outside of the mansion).

He gets badly hurt repeatedly because he tried to make himself fine with a circumstance that he very much wasn't.

Avdol has a way that he believes he's supposed to be. He has an image, but he has that moment in the Mariah fight after the train track where he seems almost giddy over reestablishing that (i know it's a fourth wall breaking joke Please). That said, he actually has a lot of probable reasons for that outside of the Stand illness, I'm just spitballing.

Anyways! Provided that the "mental strength" theory is a bust (my headcanon is that it's actually pretty random), it's probably because his sample's a little messed up.

I also think it's not far out to say that Enya has this belief because she thinks she's great.

(Bonus fact: in Part 5, Polnareff doesn't say anything about "fighting ability," he just says that it kills some people and some people survive it. My own personal theory is that he was actually building on Avdol's research here, and maybe Avdol would have shifted his theory with more information.)

So that's the symptoms, what this could imply about Avdol's backstory in regards to the illness, how that theory of survival is Interesting, and little notes relating to those symptoms.

The Spread

"Dio's existence brought forward a dormant power in you."

The meteor incident took place in 1978, where "They got blisters all over their body and died looking like tomato sauce." Two of them died, we don't know whether or not any of the other surveyors manifested.

The arrows were unearthed in 1986, after which Enya, who already knew what they did, bought five of them off of Mr. Mafia. Italy starts getting used as target practice, Enya shot Dio, Dio also started spamming the arrow.

This is the point where I put my tinfoil hat on and start racing around the stringboard.

I don't actually know how consistent the thing about Stands passing down the bloodline is, specifically because we have another example in Kira's dad giving himself and his son a Stand, but I think the phrasing implies that Yoshikage's dad shot him with the arrow because he was trying to prevent him from being caught? I legitimately cannot discern what the hell happened there.

Either way, in universe, there's at least a possibility that the impact shoots down the line.

As mentioned prior, Avdol warned Joseph before he appeared on screen, implying that he was already making this discrepancy in the causes of Stands cropping up. It's further pushed by the fact that Avdol seems pretty certain that killing Dio will resolve the issue.

Some are born, others are a result of an older relative getting exposed to Space Goo Rock or materials made from it, and the Stand (or illness) has the potential to shoot down the line. Who the fuck knows why this happens! It's JJBA is why.

You can gather that Avdol suspects that something can very suddenly awaken a Stand down the line, even if he may not necessarily know of the arrow. Those were unearthed about 1 year before SDC, so Avdol had a longer timeframe to learn about the meteor- he'd have been in his late teens when it actually happened.

This is my personal far off reach: I have the theory that Avdol was actually the one responsible for obtaining a lot of the research that Polnareff had access to in Vento Aureo. So!

Literally working with crumbs! The tinfoil had is a tinfoil 3 piece suit now :)

These documents are here for flavor, dramatic effect, and background, but! Someone blocked this information out, and redaction like this could have had any number of reasons: keeping the names confidential, but then you look at those reports, and those are sanitized as well. If you look at the papers behind them, those are blacked out too (maybe it was Polnareff :/).

However, my personal theory is that Avdol did have access to this information, albeit there's no way to tell how. That said, there's actually a few very straightforward theories to see how he might have found out about the meteorite. I can think of one off the top of my head, it's like 3 steps:

One of the men who died (or both idk) shot the Stand manifestations right down the line. Their relations get the illness or some Stands- on the death, the cases of illness resolve, and you get a couple shiny new Stand users.

Several related people suddenly manifested Stands within a few months to about a year of each other. One of them could easily have become one of the Tarot, who Avdol has been tracking.

In the process of Avdol digging up information on that assassin, he learns about some Poignant Family History. He learns that almost immediately after that One Guy Died, the formerly ill Stand users (which he was certain had no cure) were all set.

He may have even gotten into contact with family members for accounts, he could have dug up medical records, etc.

I imagine that learning would be pretty jarring for him!

It's also not limited to the meteor Stands- Avdol very well could have just inferred or found out through one of the numerous Arrow incidents happening within that one year timeframe, because Enya, Dio, and Mr. Passione were spamming :/ Joseph may have actually learned because he was present with Avdol for something like that.

That process is basically the same thing, but more recent and an arrow did it (no way to tell how much Avdol knows about the arrow).

Can't imagine Avdol took that very probable Sudden Uptick especially well, but hey.

That said, it's also very possible that he learned the cure via secondary sources, the above theories are just spitballing. I think there's definitely the possibility that research or records already existed.

Running back, though, assuming Avdol was the one to locate the meteor information first, why blank out that much information in that 2 second background image for vento aureo which wasnt even a sparkle in arakis eye when stardust was being w-?

Enya is already looking for a way to drag Stands out of people, she is already looking for the arrows, and she already has Stand assassins on her payroll- I think it's very likely that, even in the event that he didn't know who she was directly, Avdol didn't want any means of indiscriminate "throw people at a wall until a Stand splats out" being known to like. The world at large.

We don't actually need to say "Because Stardust Crusader Was Written Before" for why Avdol would have withheld that information from the others, because there's in-character precedent. Avdol does withhold information, which is its own post.

In conclusion! Mohammed Avdol's knowledge about the Stand illness's symptoms, survivability, and different ways of manifesting gives a lot to think about, particularly in the context of his characterization in SDC. There's a lot of different questions and answers to theorize about, but I personally think it's very interesting :}

The assassins are an entire other can of worms.

[ladylilithprime]

"Look, you all know that I'm a Mad Scientist, right?"

Several people nod while others exchange confused or slightly uncomfortable looks. You make a mental note to transfer those individuals to a less exacting department and nod.

"The key word in that title is mad, and it doesn't actually mean angry. It means that I am, by definition, quite explicitly crazy.

"Another title I've been given is Evil Genius," you continue, taking on a bit of a lecturing tone in the manner of your least-hated professors. "Evil is a bit subjective, admittedly, morality being a product of culture and society more than a strictly inherent category, but genius? That is definite. I am, quite frankly, almost guaranteed to be the smartest person in any given room.

"Now, knowing that I am both crazy and a genius, I also know that some of my inventions may well be even more dangerous than I anticipate simply because I am predisposed to look at something someone more rational might regard as outrageous or ill-advised and go right ahead and build it anyway for the challenge of it. Remember the Automated Atomic Scrubber?"

More nods, a few shudders from those who had survived that one. It really had been a bad idea, but the challenge was just too intriguing to resist. Which was really the point you were making.

"Now, I'm self-aware enough to know that this is a risk, which is why all of your employment contracts come with very good benefits, healthcare, and generous severance and life insurance packages," you remind them. "And not just because several of the so-called heroes have a bad habit of treating my employees as disposable."

A quiet rumble of irritated complaints goes around, and one of the workers - Alan, the one who got thrown through the plate glass window last month - reaches up to touch the faint scarring around his right eye. He had almost lost the eye, and you had been livid, sending a literally explosive complaint letter to the American Heroes Association over the incident. Another mental note to make sure Alan got a bonus for returning to work so quickly; loyalty like that was hard to come by and deserved to be rewarded.

"So, given that the heroes don't always treat my employees with the care and respect due to fellow people and excellent workers, coupled with the understanding that not all of my inventions are actually going to be good or safe for everyone around them when in use, naturally I determined that always having a quick and easy failsafe shut down would be a sensible precaution. And, since I don't want the American Heroes Association to confiscate my inventions and reverse engineer them like bloody thieves who don't respect intellectual property rights, it follows that I would make that shut down button as destructive to the machine as possible. All my blueprints are archived and backed up with password protection, anyway, so I can register the ones that work with the patent office and bury the ones that were, as noted, ill-advised.

"Was that answer sufficient?" you ask, checking in. After all, one of the hazards of always being the smartest person in the room was the occasional lapse in remembering that not everyone could follow your logic. As well, a hazard of being admittedly crazy was that your logic was not always reliably logical, so it never hurt to get confirmation.

"Yes, Doctor Hazárde," the one who had asked says, nodding and looking thoughtful. You wait, letting him think, and are unsurprised when he bites his lower lip before looking up. "I think I need to talk to HR about something, Doctor."

"I thought you might, Raoul," you say with a smile that you hope comes across as more reassuring than threatening. "Do let me know if you need a letter of recommendation or a corroborating report for AHA. You've been an excellent member of the team thus far."

"Er, thank you, Doctor," Raoul stammers, blushing and looking a touch chagrined. Really, why did heroes always assume that they weren't recognizeable out of costume? The boy hadn't even dyed his hair or worn colored contacts behind those fake glasses!

"Alright, everyone, back to work!" you say cheerfully. "And let's put that self-destruct button behind an extra armor panel, hm? Don't want to make it too easy for the heroes to get to, after all!"

Your workers always ask “Why do you put a self destruct button on your inventions?” Tired of their questioning, you decide to explain why it’s perfectly rational.

[inplodinggofer616]

the big G in the sky knew I'd be much too mighty if I had claws and fangs as a physical motif for my weird obsession with humanity's fancy new-fangled ways to brutally kill each other being very ingrained in my mind as a means to distract myself from my emotions and how it's become a way to express them despite this especially around my friends and of course leaves me wondering about the morality behind an obsession such as this and whether or not this is healthy at all for anyone least of all someone with a history of serious anger problems and a lot of beef with the world at large considering how much I feel as though I have been brainwashed by my parents, teachers and the myth of americana and if this arms obsession is a product of that and maybe that's why I feel like I'm a bad person sometimes but also I don't feel safe doing that because that would be agreeing with my mother who probably thinks that if I don't hold as many of her beliefs and live as close a life to hers as feasible then she won't go to heaven and how I can't complain about anything because she put me in this world and she can take me out which she always said in jest but knowing my anger issues stem from her I worry she could actually be liable to really do that should she find out about this whole shtick and also very frustrated that if she doesn't do that (not attempting murder being much more likely) I will have the perfect opportunity to confront her about things she said and her mother said and her shitass halfassed 'apology(?)' on her behalf but I cant be too mean grandma died very recently and if I press about stuff mumsy dearest herself said she'll just deny it. just be like 'oh I dont remember saying that so everything is better now because your rage is unfounded because your trauma doesnt exist arent you so relieved?' no you fuckass bitch take your own advice that you raised me on and admit to what you did ffs how else do you expect me to forgive you even slightly. oohooh or she'll pull her favorite move, where she mocks my actual genuine emotions because she thinks I'm doing it just to get her to pity me which DEFINITELY HAS NOT RESULTED IN A GREAT DIFFICULTY IN BEING ABLE TO GAUGE MY EMOTIONAL STATE OR EVEN SO MUCH AS WHAT THE HELL IS GOING THROUGH MY OWN GODDAMN HEAD HALF THE FUCKING TIME, BUT IF THAT'S NOT WHAT CAUSED IT OH GOLLY FUCKING GEE HOW IT VEXES ME SO

"hey why don't you like hanging out with us?"

*we're watching a tv show. an older black lady is in the hospital after exuding very serious symptoms and fainting at a farmers market and who I presume is her daughter (I don't watch this show on my own time so idk) is at her bedside and this character is a med student. the emergency room doctor says something about web md to suggest incompetence and petty fretting over nothing when the show had clear scenes and depictions of the aforementioned symptoms of what is later revealed to be a very serious heart condition. the real world problems poc face when it comes to healthcare are explicitly discussed amongst characters in this episode. the need for poc autonomy surrounding their healthcare is also explicitly stated by the daughter of the older black lady with the heart condition (I'm sorry I don't have names here I genuinely cannot remember them at all because I dont really watch this show, the show in question being 9-1-1 I think)*

'no i dont think it was a race thing tho'

*my brothers and I had been discussing the many ways marvel movies had jumped the shark*

'yeah and im also sick of all that woke crap' (she knows I'm bisexual btw just not about being genderfluid yet)

*grandma hadn't died yet (I believe this was in around october(?)) and had gotten talking about book bans and mentioned The 57 Bus, a book about a real agender highschooler who was burnt alive on a public bus for being queer by a guy who was pressured into it*

'oh but they had gay employees and were really nice to them' (at some point my (great?)grandparents owned a country club)

"idk ig I just like screwing around on my phone"

dad's a tesla driver and would prolly lick elon's boots until they were clean enough to double as mirrors and also made me spend more time than is generally considered useful learning vba and microsoft access (not entirely useless skills tbh but not very helpful because who uses either in the year of our lord that will pay me anything worth a fuck in an Economy™ that is so fucked I don't need to elaborate any more on just how fucked it is rn) oh yeah and as is Freedom-Loving American Tradition he spent more of my childhood at work, sometimes in an entirely different country for said job which is why my parents worry about my bond (or lack thereof) with my dad all the time and yet both refuse to acknowledge that having to work in order to be worth being kept alive is what caused this and can you believe that I made the realization about this part specifically because of the phone guy save button Ness/Ninten's dad in the Mother™ Series™? (on a tangentially related note, official english localized Mother 3 when?)

fr when I'm in that house every bone in my body is telling me I shoulda ran when I was like 10 and never looked back and I know people have had worse than this with their parents but this isn't about them and for that I am sorry but I can't speak for them nor do I wish to downplay my problems

[themomsandthecity]

The Very Real Sacrifice of Caring For Aging Parents in Your 20s

"I think things will be easier if my mom dies first," I found myself saying out loud to my best friend late last year, sitting on the carpeted steps of her rental house. This sentence may have come across as cold and morbid to anyone else, but I knew Tessa understood where I was coming from: Her dad and my dad both have terminal lung diseases, and neither of us have the best relationships with our moms, either. My mom in particular is generally healthy, but I worry about her living alone as someone who can be forgetful, overly trusting, isolated, and naive. Tessa and I met working at our college bookstore as cashiers. She's now a math teacher married to a great guy with a new baby boy. Tessa just turned 29. I'm a healthcare reporter who lives in Oakland, CA. I take art classes, love walking around the Bay, and have a 9-year-old cat named Clark. I'll be 28 later this year. Tessa and I both have older parents, and have bonded over how it can sometimes feel like we got robbed of fully enjoying our 20s. I don't call Tessa to gab about a new crush, or text her photos of my outfit options before a date. Instead, we talk about having to navigate federal healthcare on behalf of our parents, and arrange care for them while simultaneously trying to keep our own lives afloat. Neither of us feel like we have the same normalcy our friends do; we don't often call our parents for advice or anticipate the holiday season with excitement. Instead, our 20s have mostly felt like we're consistently waiting for the other shoe to drop, and when it does, we turn to each other for support. I am one of many millennials being affected by what's been referred to as an elder-care crisis. It's difficult to care for aging parents, especially with whom you have a strained relationship, while also navigating early adulthood. . . and financially earning less than they did at my age. The weight of credit card debt, student loans, and societal expectations can feel crushing. Hell, sometimes vet bills for just Clark can get pricey, even with pet insurance. I want to save money. I want to travel. I'd like to upgrade from a studio to a one bedroom so I don't have to fall asleep staring at my desk, since I work from home. But I also know that when my dad inevitably passes - and likely before my mom due to his condition - I'll need to be able to spring a last-minute plane ticket home and help get things in order. I recently received a master's degree from Syracuse University's Newhouse School, and throughout my final few semesters, I routinely thought to myself, "I hope my dad stays alive at least until I finish this degree." It can often feel like I'm holding my breath, hoping my parents hang on until I'm in a more established place in my life, so that I can offer the best care while also being my best self. My dad's prognosis was originally around seven years max, and he's now in his third year since being diagnosed. His health isn't currently changing much day by day, and when people ask how he's doing, I reply, "About the same." It can often feel like I'm holding my breath. I deeply desire to maintain autonomy in my own life, which still feels like it's just beginning. But I also want to make sure my parents are safe, healthy, and have all the resources they need as they age. So, rather than save for an eventual wedding or other milestone, I now have a separate savings account explicitly meant to help my parents in the event of something tragic. Just like a wedding is a major life event, so is losing a parent and maintaining care for the other parent - particularly if you're an only child, like I am. (At this point, some might ask, "Why don't you just leave the Bay Area if you're so concerned about money?" So, I should note that I have two uncles who live here, and we're very close. They weren't always part of my life, and as they also get up there in age, I want to be around them as long as possible, making… https://www.popsugar.com/family/millennial-taking-care-aging-parents-essay-49351514?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[karlmarxmaybe]

When I don't forgive someone it means they don't deserve my time or attention anymore. Anything they say to me is just noise and I will try to cut contact completely with them and forget their existence -literally erase them from my past. I Know this is a little extreme, that's why I try to forgive as much as possible. Because people that make mistakes and fall into toxicity and harming dynamics can change and become healthier (see Catra from She-Ra). I think humans are inherently kind and caring (we social), but trauma, social expectations or toxic propaganda can block our empathy and make us hurtful. When presented with the dicotomy of bully/victim, many of us become bullies to avoid becoming victims. We need to recognize that someone can be both victim and victimizer. However, even if someone doesn't intend to cause harm, that doesn't make the harm they cause less harmful. That's why victims need to be prioritized and nuance present in recognizing how much someone is responsible for their own actions. Because the thing is you can usually choose not to harm somebody. Bigger social pressures and dynamics are an explanation, not an excuse. The only excuse is when oppressive social systems directly force you into the role of victimizer. A soldier that volunteered is more accountable for war crimes than a soldier who was forcibly drafted, and both are less accountable than their commanding officers. The same way I consider morally wrong to steal from someone who has less money than you, but morally right to steal from someone with more money (the rich are to be robbed). But an abuser who repeats abuse dynamics because they come from an abusive environment is still to be held accountable.

What it all boils down to is agency; if you have personal agency (as all people should) you have the responsibility to not cause harm. And when you cause harm, it is your responsibility to use your agency to hold yourself accoutable for the harm you've done. People may forgive you when you account for your harm, or they may not. It doesn't matter. It is your responsibility to hold yourself accountable for your mistakes regardless whether or not the people you hurt forgive you.

As for how this applies to restorative justice, I'm with the prison abolitionists on this one. Clearly we need means of stopping harmful people from continuing to do harm, and the police and prison system is not doing that, rather it is used to target POC and keep them poor, in danger and straight-up doing slave work in the form of prison labor. As always the problem is capitalism, forcing poor people into crime to survive, so they don't have much agency in that. We need to dismantle all of this and build a state-funded income support system for everyone that prevents the necessity of criminal activity (And keep an eye on the govenment, we don't want a second USSR). Now some systems of crime are set up explicitly to abuse and exploit people (mafia, drug cartels, human trafficking) and those in charge do need to be held accountable. That's where the proposed systems of restorative justice come in. And the preventive systems. Other anarchists have commentd on this.

"you wanna know some things that would decrease violence? socialized healthcare, especially mental healthcare, and especially for substance abuse issues. socialized housing. decriminalizing narcotics. strict regulations on industrial waste. cleaning up pollution, especially in populated areas. Better treatment of migrants and refugees. fully funded public schools. strict standards of quality for private schools and homeschooling." -@trans-girl-nausicaa

And the Anarchist Library has plenty of essays on it.

bit of a philosophical question for yall because im curious:

what does "forgiveness" mean to you? when you say "i do/don't forgive this person," what feelings/thoughts/actions/etc. are you describing as "forgiveness"? can you forgive someone while still being angry at them? can you have no negative feelings about someone but not forgive them- do feelings matter at all? & how much do you feel forgiveness matters in things like restorative/transformative justice?

[blue-shaded]

I wanted to emphasize trans women on my message, so I did. I don’t know why you feel so attacked by me saying trans women deserve protection. I wanted to address transmisogyny, not transphobia in general because we aren’t the ones who got a book written about how we’re psychotic killers. She did write about trans men in her manifesto, and I do address it, but I was addressing /transmisogyny/ because people in this community and especially the white ones will choose drinking butterbeer at universal before thinking about our trans sisters

Feeling attacked by you saying trans women deserve protection? I'm not entirely that. I am however disgusted that you'd think its EXCLUSIVELY trans women who need protection when I'm literally here, talking to you, as a trans individual, but not identifying as a trans woman. HAVING LIVED IN THE FUCKING UK FOR FUCKS SAKE and KNOWING how horrible it is to get ANY sort of healthcare there when you're trans. Having ANY rights when you're trans in the UK is a nightmare. What do you think part of the reason was I moved to the Netherlands? Why do you think I explicitly say ALL trans people need protection because in the UK we have a filthy billionare who wrote books who is LITERALLY FUNDING the cause of our problems. Jk. rowling is associated with SO many organizations who are literally against my entire being and would USE that money to kill not only me, but EVERY trans individual in the UK if they had the option to do that. I want to even say that right now the evidence and the numbers on this are SO overwhelming that the entire state of Texas cannot HOPE to be as transphobic as the UK is right now because of this piece of garbage human being. Trans PEOPLE are being denied healthcare Trans PEOPLE are being targeted in violence Trans PEOPLE are being driven to depression. Yeah. Jk. rowling started her whole tirade about trans women but you still choose to pick a fight with me. Because you want to be right. ONLY to preserve your ego. You will CHOOSE starting a debate with me before thinking about who you're actually talking to. You CHOOSE to ignore, silence, and if you keep this up, normalize EVERYTHING else she's done PURELY because you want to win a discussion. I suggest in your next ask you take a hot minute to think about which side you're truly on. Listen to people who are ACTUALLY impacted by this instead of being all fake woke for me. I know what it felt like. You don't.

[2whatcom-blog]

Fueling an Epidemic Individuals Sharing Opioids with Pals and Household

It is no secret that the opioid disaster is without doubt one of the most urgent fashionable public well being crises hitting communities nationwide. Whereas habit to prescription ache medicines results in tens of hundreds of deaths a 12 months, a brand new research seemed on the position individuals sharing their prescriptions with others might play in feeding this drug epidemic. A second annual research commissioned by Stericycle, a medical and unsafe waste disposal firm, requested 1,200 Individuals about their prescription treatment disposal habits. Whereas 75 % reported they believed sharing or promoting unused prescriptions contributed to the nation's habit epidemic, 1 in 10 admitted they've provided or given their meds to members of the family and mates for medical and leisure use. Simply how massive of an influence does this have on the opioid disaster? Dr. Joseph Ladapo, an internist at UCLA Well being, informed Healthline that this can be a widespread however underreported actuality of how Individuals have been mishandling their prescribed drugs. "This sharing of medications goes underreported because people may have concerns about their privacy or of their activities being disclosed and potentially exposing themselves to risk. I do think it's pretty common," Ladapo mentioned, who wasn't affiliated with the brand new research. "I've spoken with patients who have engaged in that activity. I've heard people say they have offered out of kindness. I don't think this is a problem of ill intent. I think many people probably mean well when they engage in this activity," he added. Nonetheless, Ladapo stresses that this specific drawback underscores an pressing want for higher outreach and intervention efforts to quell the continued progress of the opioid epidemic.

A serious disaster

The opioid disaster has been an increasing drawback in the USA. In 2015, drug overdoses resulted in general, in keeping with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC). Should you zero in on that quantity additional, greater than 63.1 % -- or 33,091 deaths -- concerned opioids. Simply two years later, the variety of opioid-related deaths climbed to 47,600, or 67.eight % of all drug overdose deaths, the . Simply how a lot does sharing prescriptions contribute to this regarding pattern? Ladapo says it is arduous to quantify. There is no conclusive analysis on the market that addresses that particular query, however he says it is protected to say it does play a serious position. "We do know that something like 2 out of 3 people who abuse opioids obtain them at some point from a friend or a family member, so in the face of that high prevalence, it's really hard to reach another conclusion other than that it is certainly not helping," he mentioned. Like Ladapo, Josanne Pagel, MPAS, PA-C, MDiv, DFAAPA, govt director of doctor assistant providers on the Cleveland Clinic Well being System, informed Healthline she suspects the quantity of people that go previous official -- and protected -- healthcare channels to share opioids with others might be a lot larger than these statistics. "I have a higher personal experience as a provider, hearing from patients happens more commonly than not," Pagel mentioned, who additionally wasn't affiliated with this research. "First and foremost, a lot of these people want to help their family member, help their friend. No one wants to see anyone in pain. Sometimes it might take a long time to get a physician or a provider, and some people don't feel there is any harm in giving one pill to alleviate someone's pain," she mentioned. She added, "It also might be some peer pressure among friends. It's 'cool' to share leftover prescriptions, and some people are explicitly using them to get a little buzz." Basically, Pagel says it is a multifaceted, difficult drawback. There is no single cause why individuals misuse opioids and share them with others. However whereas this conduct does assist gas the opioid disaster, Pagel believes it is "secondary to overprescribing." "The first component is providers need to be more responsible in how they prescribe. They need to be thinking twice about whether this is the best recourse for treatment. That being said, I think yes, the second major cause of the crisis is sharing," she mentioned.

'A nationwide situation we have to tackle from a number of angles'

A scarcity of schooling is an enormous a part of the issue. Cindy Miller, president and CEO-elect of Stericycle Inc., mentioned essentially the most placing factor to her in regards to the research was the excessive variety of individuals -- 86 % -- who mentioned they felt comfy asking their physician or pharmacist about methods to dispose of those medication, however that two-thirds mentioned they do not know if their pharmacy permits them to return unused prescriptions. "This shows an apparent gap between people who want to identify opportunities to help curb the opioid epidemic and those who already have made the effort," she wrote in an electronic mail to Healthline. "It's clear there is still room for improvement in education around disposing of unused prescriptions, including opioids, and that consumers will be receptive to this education." Pagel says lots of people throw their medicines within the trash, which could sound innocuous however truly is not. She says many individuals on the lookout for their repair undergo others' trash. "Just tossing it out is contributing to sustaining the crisis. It's not helping people to stop the addiction," she defined. "We have a lot of unused medications that are just floating around there." Miller wrote that instructional outreach wants to enhance to appropriate the misinformation on the market in regards to the do's and don'ts of disposing opioids. "It is critical that education come from a variety of sources and is inclusive of multiple topic areas. These topics should include the impact on the environment -- i.e. informing consumers of the issues with flushing opioids -- as well as how to keep opioids out of the wrong hands (i.e. providing more information on where consumers can properly dispose of opioids)," she wrote. "This education can go beyond healthcare. For example, some HR departments at organizations are offering items such as mail-back envelopes for unused prescriptions to their employees to help fight the opioid epidemic and contribute to education on proper disposal solutions. This truly is a nationwide issue we need to address from multiple angles," Miller wrote.

Altering public consciousness

Ladapo provides that he does suppose public consciousness campaigns in regards to the opioid disaster have damaged by way of. From his personal expertise as a doctor, he is seen sufferers expressing trepidation about utilizing opioids. He says now, greater than in his early profession, persons are declining opioids and asking about different kinds of remedy. "Doctors have also evolved in the course of my career. Doctors are being more sensitive to really communicating with patients about the risk of opioids," Ladapo mentioned. "That being said, most of that communication is about the patient's risk of taking these drugs. Most doctors don't talk about the risk associated with sharing," he mentioned. Pagel stresses that extra suppliers want to provide individuals clear disposal directions together with prescriptions. She says there are "two lines of defense" that must be emphasised: Prescribers and pharmacists ought to hand out disposal luggage and directions for tips on how to do away with these medication when not wanted, and there must be extra community-specific schooling efforts about what to do with opioids. "I think this is a big call to arms to inform community leaders, to inform family members, to inform patients receiving these prescriptions, to store them and properly dispose of them with ease," she mentioned. Miller echoed these ideas. Whereas the brand new research does not contact on why so many individuals share these medicines, it affords an vital reminder that issues want to vary. "We do know this is a very dangerous habit due to the addictive properties of many of these drugs, including opioids," she wrote. "It's important to make sure friends and family only receive prescription medication from a prescribing physician, and that consumers properly dispose of any unused medication to make sure they don't fall into the wrong hands." Read the full article

[beautytipsfor]

Don't be fooled: Joe Biden is no friend of unions

The former vice-president is dressing up his candidacy in a blue-collar costume. But he’s never taken a political risk for workersThe former vice-president Joe Biden speaks at a campaign rally at Teamsters Local 249 union hall on Monday in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Photograph: Jeff Swensen/Getty ImagesIn San Francisco there’s a high-end boutique called “Unionmade”. There you will find expensive work jackets and overalls, lit by bare bulbs and displayed on unvarnished metal shelves. The aesthetic could not convey its message any more clearly: buy these clothes, and access a bygone era of authenticity and American craftsmanship. But it’s a lie – the clothes on offer are largely not union-made. “The unfortunate reality is that there are not many unions left in the garment industry and so the name was cultivated as a signifier of well-made and aesthetically timeless goods,” explains a spokesperson.As the industrial working class has faded, its afterimage has become available for appropriation in commerce, in culture and in politics. Such appropriation need not entail commitment to the workers’ movement. Everyone from Levi’s jeans to Donald Trump has made this move – and now, Joe Biden, the would-be candidate of labor.Biden is the Unionmade of politicians. The former vice-president is taking great care to dress up his new candidacy in a blue-collar costume; as Andrew Epstein puts it, he is an “aesthetic populist”. His kickoff rally was on Monday in a union hall in Pittsburgh, where the president of the United Steelworkers of America promised his members would be present “wearing their USW gear”.The International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), whose president has long been close to Biden, has endorsed him. Bob Casey, the Pennsylvania senator of the old New Deal variety (anti-abortion, pro-labor), chimes in that Biden has an “electric” connection with “old-school union guys”.When he was considering running in 2016, CNN observed, “Joe Biden’s relationship with America’s working men and women is at the core of his political soul.” Yet the idea that Biden is some kind of working-class hero has no discernible substance. Like the myth on the right that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an empty-headed idiot, it’s pure projection – though one that he’s at great pains to encourage.To be sure, Biden is a nominally pro-union liberal. Like any Democrat, he won’t cross a picket line. He loves to talk in union halls. He’s always saying things like, “There’s an old saying – all men are created equal but then a few became firefighters,” and “The best place for me to be my whole career is surrounded by organized labor. And I know how to say ‘union’.”The notional blue-collar appeal of Joe from hard-luck Scranton was widely understood to be one of the main reasons that Barack Obama – famously the effete “wine track” candidate – selected him as a running mate. But where does this appeal come from? Biden’s not a scion of wealth, but he grew up in the middle class: his father was a used-car salesman, not a factory worker.At no point in his career has Biden proven willing to take the slightest political risk on behalf of workers. His appearances in union halls occur when he needs something from labor. On the other hand, when Biden went to vacation in the Hamptons during the 2011 Verizon strike, workers in the area sought him out “just to possibly get a show of support, a thumb’s-up, a head nod, anything” – to no avail. That same year in Wisconsin, labor leaders specifically asked Biden to come to rally their resistance to the brutal, ultimately successful attack by Scott Walker; Biden declined.In fact, I can find reports of only two instances of Biden appearing on a picket line or otherwise supporting embattled workers at any point in his very long public life: once in Iowa, during his 1987 presidential campaign, and just this month in Boston. Now, his first major presidential fundraiser is being hosted by the founder of one of the country’s leading anti-union law firms. The man running to be labor’s champion is sponsored by someone who has made millions choking the life out of the labor movement.Nor does Biden have a public policy record favorable to the working class. In 1977-1978, during unions’ big push for labor law reform, he vacillated for months and sabotaged the proposal with public criticism. He voted for Nafta and supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He authored the punishing 2005 bankruptcy bill, a reward to creditors and punishment to debtors. Worse still, he has been one of the main legislative architects of mass incarceration, a regime that has devastated the heavily policed and punished American working class.But this brings us to the real substance of the problem. Biden would surely not recognize the targets of mass incarceration as members of what he imagines as the “working class”. As he put it in a speech to the IAFF in March, “In my neighborhood you grew up either to be a firefighter or a cop, a tradesman or a priest.” This stratum is what has often been called the “aristocracy of labor”. These occupations and their unions have historically been hostile to women and people of color and de facto segregated. They are more economically comfortable and politically conservative than the rest of the working class, and are notorious for pursuing their own immediate interests over broader working-class solidarity. The building trades, for instance, have played a central role in leading organized labor’s opposition to the Green New Deal.When Biden cracked a joke several weeks ago about his habit of touching women without consent, he was speaking to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. While the IBEW today takes a strong public stand for workplace equality, both the union and the industry have deep histories of ignoring sexual harassment and racial discrimination. According to a 2013 study, only one-quarter of women in the building trades believe they are equally respected on the job. This context makes Biden’s joking about the accusation of a Latina before that particular crowd seem altogether more insidious. Harassment, after all, is nothing if not a workplace issue. You’d only joke about it to a union crowd if you didn’t think women were really workers.But Biden’s vision of a better deal for labor is, explicitly, to turn back the clock. “There used to be a basic bargain in this country,” he is fond of saying. “All we’re trying to do is get it back to where we were.”The unions that are considering supporting Biden are the blue-collar ones that were party to what he calls the “basic bargain” of mid-century. The leaders of those organizations were unnerved by how strongly Donald Trump ran among their members, and it is this anxiety that fuels their attraction to Biden, who they hope will do their persuasion work for them.Unions closer to politicians than to their members are unions waiting to die. As labor’s fortunes have declined, so has the imaginative scope of many labor leaders. Each year of shrinking membership has driven them to behave more narrowly and defensively, to abandon the initiative.This is all the worse in a moment that invites broad and radical vision. More workers went on strike in 2018 than in any year since 1986. Over 90% of those who did worked in either healthcare or education – sectors that were not included in the mid-century “basic bargain”.What’s remarkable is that Biden’s proletarian minstrel act has worked for this long. When he dropped out of the 1988 presidential race, it was after getting caught plagiarizing a monologue by the British Labour party leader, Neil Kinnock, on his coalminer roots. Biden’s spokesperson explained that, while Biden had no immediate relations who were coalminers, the “people that his ancestors grew up with in the Scranton region, and in general the people of that region were coalminers.” In fact, Biden did have an ancestor in the coal industry, Patrick F Blewitt, who died in 1911. But he wasn’t a miner – he was a boss.

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[thedreadvampy]

"But if there's a revolution people might get hurt!!!"

Ok so first off not all revolution is violent revolution so jot that bitch down, there is in fact several steps between "vote every few years" and "form an organised militia to conduct guerilla warfare against the state apparatus"

but also yeah I'm with you, those who are harmed in times of turmoil are usually the most precarious and marginalised - the poor, disabled, sick, unhoused, othered, dehumanised, etc. Revolution often does cause huge harm to those at the bottom.

but you know when else people might die? LITERALLY CURRENTLY. RIGHT NOW. The fear of how, say, people reliant on medical support will survive infrastructure disruption is a valid one. It would be a more valid concern if those people were getting access to their basic needs now.

I remember sitting on a bench outside the jobcentre in 2015 bawling my fucking eyes out at the idea that the Conservatives could win a landslide victory at a time when disabled, elderly and poor people were starving and freezing to death in their homes as an explicitly deliberate result of Tory policy. And things have got a lot worse over the interceding decade. Right now a lot of lifesaving medication is straight up unavailable and people are waiting over a year for urgent surgeries.

Is it so different, starving or dying or being imprisoned at the hands of the status quo, to starving or dying as an unwanted side effect of change, that the hypothetical possibility of harm from revolution is enough to outweigh any amount of death, trauma and deprivation in reality?

It's good to be concerned about who might be unintentional casualties of a revolutionary act. The next step after that isn't to write off the idea of any kind of action, it's to think about ways to mitigate and minimise that harm. Let's talk about who might be harmed if you block a road or blow up a pipeline, and then we can plan to negotiate emergency passage, or build up mutual aid support in areas affected by blackouts, or consider which wires to cut to shut down an arms factory without blacking out the neighborhood, or look at alternative food and medicine provisions during an action which might limit them.

We probably can't see a revolution which fully avoids harm to human life. We absolutely can plan revolutionary action which does less harm than the murderous systems it opposes.

"but what about the people you might hurt" should always be the first question, not the last. if you're so worried about the fallout of revolutionary action, the best place to be is in the midst of organising it, so you can make sure that those concerns are accounted for.

People are already being killed and wounded. tens of thousands in Palestine, of course, but closer to home too, hundreds killed crossing the Channel every year, thousands kept in internment. Millions living in the everyday injuries of traumatic poverty. A third of UK children born after 2010 are malnourished. People are being denied healthcare through austerity, underfunding and means testing. A majority of the country live in houses which are so poorly maintained that it's making us sick, and with the stress of precaution that comes from living month to month.

We are privileged by our relative safety in the imperial core but nonetheless a huge, huge chunk of our population are dying deaths of poverty and neglect, and marginalised people particularly are increasingly subject to direct state violence as well. The great political project of this government is literally to defy the law in order to round up disenfranchised people and send them to an Overseas Fucking Concentration Camp. All any of the major parties disagree on at the moment is the best way to do the harm - they all agree that harm is the goal, whether it's against migrants, Muslims, trans people, disabled people, or just The Poor.

so fucking no I don't think that the possibility of collateral damage is an argument against trying to take action against the reality of deliberate violence, actually. I am a pacifist in that I don't believe in violent escalation or violence for violence, but I also think that shoving someone off you if they're beating you to a pulp is morally justified, even if there's a risk they might accidentally hit their head and die falling back.

Pacifism isn't passivism - it means the goal is to minimise violence and not to cause it, but that doesn't mean ignoring the vast amounts of violence already in fucking play.

I never know if I'm getting more radicalised or my old friends are getting more centrist but the amount of "just vote! work within the system! revolution is nice in theory but should never be allowed to happen!" posting I see on dash - from people I used to feel on the same page as - is. exhausting.

[fierceawakening]

@sheathandshear tags: ethics tw: child abuse this is something i think a lot about in healthcare not at the level of 'should they get their basic needs met' does the guy who sexually harassed an ER nurse and pressured her for her cell and tried to look up her work schedule deserve to get treatment for his bladder cancer? yes do i feel particularly inclined towards bringing him yet another warm blanket and adjusting his pillow slightly to the left? no & i dont actually feel any guilt over prioritizing comfort of ppl who (to my knowledge!) have behaved less cruelly but i do wonder if that's where these things start the feeling that it's ok to punish ppl who are hurtful to others by being... not explicitly unkind but not prioritizing kindness either (no we cannot go pick up your chipotle doordash from across the hospital. order off the dinner menu.) not doing 150% for an entitled jerk when you can and have gone above & beyond ur scope of responsibility for someone who was kind to u but sliding downwards into 'hurtful ppl' being more broadly defined along with 'acceptable punishment via non-prioritizing kindness' until 'solitary confinement for that inmate bc he talked back to me' seems totally reasonable and ethical i don't think society has come up with a good way to interact w ppl who transgress interpersonal behavioral norms in hurtful ways (and defines 'hurtful ways' WAY too broadly but i digress) expecting ppl to be saints to a**holes is unrealistic and maybe unethical itself? bc IME ppl who do things that please *them* but hurt others will continue to do those things if they feel there is no consequence towards them for doing them but then u end up with punishment via micro-unkindness then micro-cruelty then plain disproportionate macro-cruelty and even on the micro level... there's a meaningful difference btwn handing someone a sandwich and throwing it at them even tho they end up fed in either case '3 hots and a cot and medical care' meet maslows needs but you'd be hard-pressed to say that incarcerated ppl are treated ethically so what is ethical behavior in a helping profession where 'i hate them as a person but i will meet their basic needs' can itself be used as a form of punishment? (not to say that you do this op bc from ur writing i really think u don't) (but i have encountered this attitude a *lot* in help/care professions)

Thank you, and absolutely yes. This is exactly why when tumblr talks about not stigmatizing people with severe behavior issues I hesitate. It’s not that I disagree that someone who screamed in my face deserves three hots and a cot, or even that I don’t think ideally i should strive to be nicer than that even.

It’s that… there’s behavior it’s actually really hard to tolerate, and it’s not how close to neurotypical I am that makes me have difficulty with it, I don’t think. I’ve seen people who BOTH have behavior issues struggle to tolerate ONE ANOTHER too often to just think everyone is just being neurotypical.

And I don’t know. It’s hard to talk about. But I kind of wish we did more. When is someone behaving badly toward vulnerable people because of burnout and it’s excusable but not ideal? When is it understandable but still wrong?

We talk like the answers are simple, and I don’t think they are. It’s why I’m angry at the therapist who abused me, but I can’t bring myself to feel COMPLETELY CERTAIN none of her frustration was EVER understandable at all.

It’s how she handled me, spoke to me, and expressed it to me that was wrong.

*That* I can judge, even if I can also see why she might well have been overwhelmed.

Also, the other reason it feels weird to me when people do the whole leftist talking point thing about how something like punishment or prison is always bad but THEN clearly think some people deserve the book thrown at them is, like…

When I did social services type pf work, i found it really difficult to work with people I knew had abused kids. Especially the ones who said things like, “you’re only wincing at that because you’re white, it’s so cute” or even worse, the ones who said “Look. My son is DISABLED. I can’t reason with him. I have to hit him, because nothing else works. And I have to use my belt, because he doesn’t respond to less pain than that. The courts are just wrong.” (Yes, I’ve heard that one repeatedly.)

If I could I’d ask other people tp handle these cases. But I couldn’t always, and sometimes I felt like askin* would mean having to disclose my own history to the coworker I was asking t9 take this stuff on when I didn’t want to.

So in some cases, repeating to myself “she’s a person, all persons should be fed, therefore I will help her to apply for food stamps and then run to the bathroom to clean myself because I feel dirty” was the only thing that kept me from saying no.

Which… I shouldn’t be unfair to people who haven’t experienced this thing. But it still troubles me when People spout “human rights are universal!” but then are like “shoot abusers dead on sight.”

Because like… you’re conveniently defining “human” to not include people you hate, there.