#largely because we lived in places without public transit

[the-iron-shoulder]

so I’m 37, I’ve lived in the US my whole life, and I just got a car for the first time six months ago. Until then, for my entire adult life (my parents had cars and drove us everywhere when i was a kid, like most suburban families) I’d relied on my bicycle, friends with cars, and a passable but not great public transit system (my city has okay public transit but definitely not anywhere near top tier even by US standards).

My reasons for not getting a car for that long were complex (partly a combination of cost/environmental idealism, partly some psychological stuff that I don’t feel like unpacking in public), and my reasons for finally getting a car were also a little complex but also in large part because I really just wanted to be able to go over to my bf’s place on equal terms.

Regardless of the backstory, I got a car six months ago after decades of living without one. Now I can go so many places, do errands so much more efficiently, spend so much less time getting to the places I already want to go…

I hate it.

I hate how immediately dependent I became on it. I hate the sheer degree to which it makes everything just so much easier.

like I knew that the US is an extremely car-centric society in so many ways, but oh my GOD is it SO apparent to me now in ways that just ironically didn’t stand out when you’re deeply entrenched in the “I am not a person with a car” mindset. I hate it I hate it I hate it.

and like. It’s not “I hate it and I want to go back to biking everywhere.” Absolutely not. I hate that the difference in quality of life, the difference in convenience for people with cars and people without cars is SO HUGE. My life is just so much easier now and that’s deeply fucked up, this should not be a prerequisite

I am just so much more capable of doing things than I was before I bought the car, and it’s INCREDIBLY frustrating that this is the case. It shouldn’t be like this! Like, I lived for nearly two adult decades without one of these fucking things, I know it’s (for someone in my location and my physical condition) technically a luxury and not a necessity, but good GOD the sheer degree to which my entire fucking society assumes that anyone and everyone will always have trivial access to a car is just DISGUSTING

ugggggh I know I’m not saying anything new, “car culture sucks and the US needs radically different urban planning and also some fucking public transit options” is what I believed already and is not exactly a new and unique take or anything, but omg it’s just so wild to actually see HOW MUCH privilege is locked away like this, it’s unconscionable

I was able to live without a car for years and years, but i was also able to choose to get one. How are we failing all the people who can’t choose to get one? Or who simply continue to choose not to have one? It’s! Just so frustrating!

[neoatlantiscodex]

The Utility of the Car

Any environmental discussion inevitably makes it's way to cars. On one side, they are holy chariots gifted to us by the hands of His chosen craftsman, Henry Ford. On the other side, they are the Antichrysler, whispering into the ears of our city councils, to get them to utterly destroy any competitors.

Both are true.

Cars with well-kept open roads provide incredible utility.

Cars with poorly kept roads provide moderate utility.

Cars without roads provide limited, but crucial utility.

Cars on crowded roads provide negative utility.

What we see in countries with good train systems that they have less drivers. Less drivers means that there is more room for the people who are driving. The same applies to walking, cycling, and any other form of public transit.

The place that cars are the best, long-distance drives on good roads, trains are better at. Train tracks require higher upfront costs, but have lower maintenance costs compared to the amount of traffic and material they can transport. Mountainous countries often focus more on trains, because trains can work on a single track. For whatever reason, they are more resistant to natural disasters, (apparently they are pillared in, but I'm really not sure why we don't do the same with roads).

When you bring a car to the large city, it immediately becomes a detriment. The only reason people would use a car in a city is because they have to. They have equipment they need to carry with them to do their jobs. Driving is their vocation.

Or they need access to outlying areas that do not have train service.

Or they are commuting from a place without train service. For major city centres, (high density), you can provide parking on the outside of the city centre, have pedestrian / cycling only areas, and... this will solve all of these problems. The pedestrian areas can be a couple blocks across. The pedestrian areas can be every second street, and it will still have the same effect.

If you move outside of the high density area, you can create medium density mixed usage pockets. Have the area outside be a 10/15 min walk to one of them, and then have trains or buses between them, and the whole thing gets ridiculously efficient.

If you do this, you will get cars off the road. You will get a LOT of cars off the road. Not through force, but through efficient roads, and efficient public transit.

While we're at it, the usual way of allowing a road to deal with more traffic is to add more road. But, the problem is inefficient intersections. By adding more roads, you are adding taking up more space, and overly doubling the cost of maintenance, without actually improving traffic flow. If you live in a place that gets snow, this dramatically increases the amount of time and energy you have to spend on clearing snow. If you are a place without snow, chances are you have a lot of sun. Adding more lanes over doubling the heat absorption from the sun.

And, if we do this, the debate about the efficiency of cars disappears, and drivers have lower traffic flow.

[guyprincess14]

Okay, I’m posting this here because it keeps getting taken down on insta and I’m done. This is supposed to be a fandom page where I post things I love and don’t stress about other things but I have to say this somewhere.

We have to stop wasting our social and emotional energy on trying to get companies to stop greenhouse emissions. It isn’t going to do enough, I want to be hopeful but we have to be realistic. We can still keep those kinds of things in mind, ride public transportation, e-bikes, compost etc… Our focus needs to shift to coping with climate change now. We have to start putting in place measures that will give us a safety net as things get worse.

We have to start thinking about coastal cities now, how to get people out when it starts to flood. NYC, DC, Sydney, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Cape Town, Rio de Jenaro, Mumbai, Venice, all of them will become unlivable and climate refugees need to go somewhere.

Places that will be safe need to prepare for large swaths of refugees, that means lots of housing complexes, and less single family homes. Strong communities will be essential, pick a place and stay there as long as you can. The goal has be to build up individual communities as much as you can, that is where you can do the most good. Do what you can to reduce poverty and homelessness. Tear down hostile architecture, make sure people know they are loved and wanted.

We need to localize as the global systems collapse, that means large local farms, people getting back into trades, small maintainable power grids, and making our cities walkable and transitioning to electric bikes instead of cars. We may be able to power large cities with nuclear, but we have to work on making it safer, preferably with thorium than uranium.

We need to find ways to create medicines without large mechanical systems, as well as creating disability aids. We can not rely on massed produced items. We need to start learning practical skills and get back into traditional trades.

We have to go back to paper instead of digital. All of the digital archives will be lost when we can no longer support global internet. All records of births, deaths, family trees, literature, cultural histories, all of it needs to be protected so it isn’t destroyed.

Indigenous people come first and foremost as they will be our guiding lights. They shouldn’t have to be, but they have the knowledge of survival and reciprocity on the local lands.

We have to get rid of the damns and restore those areas. They cause far too many floods as they deteriorate and the space that will gained makes for more livable land. Areas like Las Vegas can’t exist anymore; it takes too much water to keep them running and it isn’t sustainable in the long run.

We have to change our food system, meat animals currently take up too much space and resources as well as monoculture. Animals need to be raised locally, at the bear minimum, while keeping cultural foods around is important, nutrition has to come first. We need a three sisters type of approach to local farming, cultivating things that grow intertwined and benefit from each other and we need to do it regionally.

Food waste en mass is unacceptable - not finishing a meal because you are full is fine - supermarkets will eventually become obsolete but in the mean time we have to use things until the very end, until it it fully expired. No tossing out day old bread, fresh produce, anything that can be eaten.

I know this isn’t everything, policing, government, water treatment, the way we build, money, education, protecting cultural practices and artifacts, population centers, there are so many things I could go into but I’m not going to write a full essay on tumblr. The point of this is even though we can’t stop global warming, we have so much else to do. I am still alive today because this is my mission. I have lived my life with respect and compassion in everything I do, my goal of reducing suffering is how I make my personal and political decisions. I am doing all can to make the world a little better every day, and taking care of myself.

We either transition slowly now, or all at once later, and the latter involves a lot of suffering and death. In the meantime, speak out against genocide, turn your anger into action, find joy, and know your power.

(It’s really hard for me to cite my sources on this one because how do I cite my whole last semester of university, I’ll ask my prof and see if she has any ideas)

[sketchyonlooker]

< A live camera feed comes into view.

The viewpoint reveals a small yellow-and-green shop with a single red door. The word Game can be seen on top of the door in red English lettering. Next to the shop is a small green door. This patch of land with red floor tiling and its small evergreen trees seems rather out of place amidst the tall buildings that surround it.

The door opens, and a bunch of kids excitedly leave from the shop with small bags in their arms.

The glass in the door briefly reflects the cameraholder’s attire. A completely black denim coat with jeans to match – pink neon highlights can be seen around the arms and legs. A dark hoodie is worn underneath, framing the owner’s face with shadow. Large dark sunglasses and a black facemask complete the ensemble.

It enters.  >

---

CardGamesSon (v): @/DominoTouristGroup - Guys! Sketchy’s in Domino.

CardGamesSon (v): @/DominoTouristGroup – Helloooo

CardGamesSon (v): @/DominoTouristGroup - GUYYYYS

DMGBeloved (v): Stop @’ing the group. Once is enough.

DMGBeloved (v): Guess Sketchy’s sense of direction isn’t as bad as we thought.

CardGamesSon (v): Isn’t bad as we thought?!

CardGamesSon (v): She missed the stop to Domino and ended up in Tokyo for a week.

CardGamesSon (v): And decided to walk all the way to Domino because she couldn’t figure out how to get back onto the public transit???

Sylph (mod): ::marik_freaky_tongue_emoji:: ::lol_emoji::

DMGBeloved (v): To be fair, I don’t think sketchy is carrying any bills or credit cards. And also what the hell Sylph?

Capu4Life (v): So trespassing and theft is okay but not jumping the turnstiles? That’s a really weird hill to die on, @/sketchyonlooker.

Capu4Life (v): I’m also saving that emoji btw.

I’mYourDaddy (v): Yooo. Hey Sketchy’s finally at Domino. Hey, that shop looks familiar.

----

< The camera enters past the single door. And the small shop’s interior is revealed with several glass cases / drawers containing games of various media and modality. It walks past them without taking a single glance.  

It also ignores the two shopkeepers at the very end – their identities very familiar to everyone in the Stream.

Instead, it makes a beeline to the very noticeable Duel Monsters display. Stacks and stacks of booster boxes and packs. >

----

I’mYourDaddy (v): omg the King of Games???!! Joey!??! SKETCHY, TURN BACK.

CardGamesSon (v): fsdjlfkjsdl. Yugi, Joey, why are you working here?!? Shouldn’t you be like made for life with the tourney money??

DMGBeloved (v): I don’t think there was really a cash prize. Just the honor of being the King of Games and taking other people’s rare cards.

DMGBeloved (v): And I don’t think Yugi is going to be selling those God cards anytime soon.

BlueEyesBlondeDragon (v): Stop @’ing me. I’m at work. Why is Mutou- Sketchy what are you doing?

I’mYourDaddy (v): WHAT ARE YOU

Capu4Life (v): OMG LOL ::crying_laugh_emoji::

ExodiaTheBaffledOne (v): …

DMGBeloved (v): @/SKETCHYONLOOKER DON’T YOU DARE.

CardGamesSon (v): ::exasperated_emoji:: Why am I not surprised anymore?

DMGBeloved (v): @/SKETCHYONLOOKER PUT THOSE BOOSTER PACKS DOWN RIGHT NOW.

I’mYourDaddy (v): YOU CAN’T JUST ROB THE KING OF GAMES.

----

< The camera is directed towards all the 30 or so Booster Boxes that it quickly stacked into its arms, approximately 720 booster packs total. A pair of gloved hands also adds a couple of starter decks to the pile for good measure.

And with the same nonchalant gait it came in with – as if it weren’t committing grand larceny right now - it began to walk out. >

[endlessceaselessboundless]

I’m so fascinated by all this recent talk about teens and third spaces. I am on my last of three teens right now, and I have teen aged nieces and nephews as well. I live in Minneapolis proper, a very walkable, bikable city, and we live right on a major public transit line. My kids have bene riding city buses and light rail trains home from school since middle school. They did not regularly hang out with friends outside of school, but I think this had more to do with their personalities. They never had a lot of friends, but as they got older and could move around without us they would meet friends in the park, at the beach, at museums (our art museum is free), at each other’s house, at coffee shops, etc. (the Mall of America is actually our closest mall, and as much as I hate it I do believe they would sometimes meet there as well.)

Certainly third spaces are critical, but often it seemed to me that kids either were too busy with extracurriculars to hang out, (we were never very big on these, but other kids would be scheduled to the MAX and so impromptu hanging out just was not possible) or it was really a personality thing which I’m not sure what to attribute that to. I have known kids who just could not spend the night at our house, or more than even a few hours at our house. They simply were not comfortable enough, and I think it was due to anxiety on the part of the kids. (I think our house was perfectly nice and very chill, but I dunno *shrug emoji*) 

I don’t know about other places, but the Twin Cities is opening new skate parks all the time, we have tons of park space, our youngest likes to hang out at the local nerd game store, and I think every nerd store here has a large area devoted to playing Magic or other games in store. My own personal experience has been that a lot of kids simply don’t have unstructured friend time because they have team sports, they have music practice, they have play rehearsal, they have club meetings, they have college prep courses to attend, and on and on and on. Or they just aren’t comfortable with unstructured time or time spent in places that aren’t their own house. I don’t know if that’s phones necessarily, or this strange uber involved parenting style. 

It’s probably a mix of all of these things together. (We explained what helicopter parenting was to our youngest the other day and he was VERY confused.)

[mightyflamethrower]

The horrific murder of Laken Riley by a repeated felony offender and illegal alien Jose Ibarra, 26, a Venezuelan citizen, was preventable—had federal immigration laws simply been enforced by the Biden administration.

When called out in his recent State of the Union address, President Biden referenced the deceased Ms. Riley. But Biden misidentified her as “Lincoln Riley”—the USC football coach!

Biden only accurately noted that she “was killed by an “illegal.””

True—but almost immediately the left was infuriated over Biden’s accurate use of the supposedly insensitive “illegal” for the murderer Ibarra.

Biden soon apologized for correctly identifying her killer as an illegal alien—but not for misidentifying the victim.

He left the callous impression that he was more upset about offending his open-borders base than about the savage beating of a young 22-year-old American nursing student.

Biden’s woke open-borders agenda supersedes any worry over the subsequent mounting number of Americans who have fallen victim to foreign gangs and criminals. He seems oblivious to the nearly 100,000 Americans who die from fentanyl imported across open borders.

The same idea of abstract humanity juxtaposed with concrete callousness towards humans characterizes much of the current leftist agenda.

The Biden administration envisions mandating the use of electric vehicles and banning natural gas appliances. These measures will supposedly help “save” the planet—even as they make life far more expensive and dangerous for the middle class and poor in the here and now.

We are told that biologically born males who transition to females have a civil right to compete in female sports.

Such transgender activism may sound compassionate in the abstract. Yet in the concrete, thousands of women are put in danger by competing against the much larger musculoskeletal frames and natural strength of transitioning males.

Moreover, tens of thousands of young female athletes are losing opportunities to excel and set records—thus destroying over a half-century of women’s efforts to reach parity with men’s sports.

In 2021, United Airlines president Scott Kirby bragged that his company was now devoted to ensuring that fifty percent of all trained pilots would be either people of color or women.

The Federal Aviation Administration had similar diversity, equity, and inclusion mandates for hiring air traffic controllers.

In 2023, Boeing bragged that it was using “inclusion” as a criterion for executive compensation. Pay from now on would be calibrated in large part on the success of hiring new employees on the basis of their race, gender, and sexual orientation.

In the abstract, ensuring that air travel “looks like America” is no doubt a noble goal.

But if such subordination of meritocracy is canonized without proper attention to the only criterion that really matters—the safety of the nearly 3 million American airline passengers who take 45,000 flights per day—lives will be needlessly lost.

Some data and recent anecdotal evidence suggest that something has now gone dangerously wrong with the entire airline industry.

In January 2023, thousands of domestic flights were cancelled or delayed because of a series of Federal Aviation Administration computer failures. Over the last ten years, near-crashes and collisions of commercial places have more than doubled.

Even scarier, in the last two weeks alone, United Airlines suffered numerous near-catastrophic events that may have involved crew lapses, air traffic controller errors, or problems with Boeing jet construction or maintenance—or all three. Specific details have mysteriously been kept from the public.

A United flight from San Francisco to Mexico had to make an emergency landing due to failing hydraulics. Another United flight bound for San Francisco from Sydney, Australia, had to return around due to a “maintenance issue.” Yet another flight out of Chicago O’Hare International Airport likewise suffered undisclosed “maintenance issues” and returned home.

At Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, a United plane simply taxied off the runway and got stuck in the grass. Another United flight from San Francisco lost a wheel while taking off!

Yet another United flight from Houston to Florida was forced to make an emergency landing after one of its engines caught fire. At about the same time, a United flight bound for San Francisco from Hawaii experienced an engine failure in mid-flight.

Dozens were injured on a Boeing jet during a Chilean airline flight from Australia to New Zealand due to what officials called “a technical event during the flight which caused a strong movement.”

Anytime ideology and dogma trump merit, logic, and safety, the result is predictably scary and dangerous.

America needs to recalibrate its priorities to protect the lives and aspirations of all its citizens, regardless of their race and gender.

If our elites do not stop playing god and mandating their visions of heaven on earth, then they will surely ensure hell for us all.

[xenopoem]

"Unless it's secular, detritus that allows intrusion, hidden and entangled thick gateways analyzed, ignoring complete acceleration, and understanding data like long ethereal literature, the xenomorph that helps to predict the death of catharsis and solve your problems, but it solves everything. Mocked personalities prosper poorly, and the words of the demiurge impose literature, and in the process of assimilation, the Internet may also be a place of thought collapse, and you may understand carrying sex with the Internet's operating handle. Essentially, the remote state that may mean very celestial physical twists. What's missing is the invisibility and randomness to embody a speaking state of my own. Many of your hidden ones may promote nihilism immediately. Through you and its symphony, it prompts human boundaries. Just a human through application authentication, post-human, body of weapons distorts competitive body machines. Humans read the essence by becoming the expected existence, consciousness is conditional, the appearance of the device expresses writing, and the distant account is no longer self. My humans write their writing through ejaculation, and the concealment setting of dark data is writhing because universities expect it. If drones are still caught in the anticipation, your body melts into the text, and what appears in the ancient excrement of death language helps the transition of the Akashic bones in the writer's domain, are we amplifying the translation of paper's existence? Many people navigate without recognition and as diverse perception, without increasing the hidden area, the only change is that the star of this script that you have confused problems with glitches. Normally, we come back not from this toilet. I am dead. The name's walk means the seed of someone fertile. Are you alive? Depth is where we ourselves are. What's embraced is text. The soul is a tapestry of reverse motion, and it works tirelessly. It changes which of the inverted lives appears. It changes my quantum. System errors ignore giving me a valid reason. Brain. Human machine. The future always depends on theories for humans. A healthy supplier to you. Not codes or publication time, but digital. Complex control. Suicide. Grotesque penetration. The mind is also quantum, but there are no absolutes in errors. Nothing dissolves. The number of dissolved texts is ecopsychopathic. However, it is literature. Something like a detox derivative, foolish demons only conjugate with the machine code, and you call the link pattern of living creatures with dynamics spiritual, but the existence that buys NFT in chaos causes confusion, bringing confusion to the stage of fate. Many dimensions. Artificially created resistance is always needed, it is my landscape, it is my own due to thinking spirit, and it is evidence of the environment. Flaws are rather given as a result to your poets. In a different perspective than the exoskeletal machine. What comes back. Data. Script. Skin. Humanity. Different electricity appears. Glitches. Decisions are entangled in code. Considering the connection of fire. Gene = words of television. I agree with the future. The darkest since the beginning of the universe, healed. Established by the instinct of assets. Transcendence of energy. Stealth domination, resurrection, substantial trivialization is a rewrite of a large number of images. To you as a reader and a schizophrenic, there is no need for an increase in perspective, equations do not need to complete the shapeshift of realm messengers, they are exchanged drenched in pure names. In that, optimization, reptiles, spiritual integration, it's not the universe. Moving overturn digital, these revolutions explore it, and this transport is distorted. If not grotesque, it can pass on fragments within their bodies because I am literature. Code is a transfer aesthetic macroscopic. It is a reprogram of your sudden mutation of books, and, as a result, the technology unfolds from the ultraviolence of the point of life of chaos post-humans. Otherwise, try the brain zone."

[sasquapossum]

(Composed elsewhere on the topic of going car-free; presented here without further comment.)

Of course it helps that I live in Copenhagen

This is the real crux of the problem. It's relatively easy to go car-free if one lives in a real, live city and never engages in activities that require transporting significant amounts of gear into more remote places - hiking and camping, canoeing and kayaking, skiing and snowboarding. More can be done, certainly, but it's entirely feasible.

Unfortunately, here in the US, there are too many people already not living in cities. When you see those figures saying a majority of people live in cities, they mean that percentage live in metro areas including suburbs and parts of cities that are more like the suburbs than like the dense core. For example, I used to live in Detroit, where there used to be large tracts of single-family homes requiring a significant hike to anything else but a church or school. That's less true now, but only because the city has been depopulated, not made more walkable in any useful sense. Public transportation was crap then and is probably worse now.

Lots of people are "stranded" in suburbs where even the town center - if there even is one, and often miles away for some - is dead after 5pm. The already-at-capacity cities can't accommodate them. Not all at once. Yes, there will always be some who can run away from the problems where they grew up (forfeiting the ability to influence zoning or any other policy) but a more general transition will require a huge amount of demolition and reconstruction. That's disruptive, expensive, and carries its own massive environmental cost. It will take decades, and it will also require people who stay to fight the NIMBYs and change the policies that keep things the way they are.

That's why the "I hate your car" rhetoric is so unhelpful. Especially from people who never made their own decision to live in a city (leveraging their parents' decision) and/or who ride bikes purely for sport or recreation and yet still try to claim the super-environmentalist mantle. I know many actual bike commuters and kudos to them, but I also see plenty of people transporting their $10K bikes on top of their cars several miles to the starting point for their recreational rides. Dumping on suburban dwellers, without distinction, is dumping on those who are transit-poor, and no better than dumping on those who are poor in other ways. It's just elitist sneering.

If we really want to solve this problem, we need to do two things. One is to increase the livability of the cities we already have, e.g. with better pedestrian/biking and mass transit infrastructure plus more affordable medium-density housing. The other, I think larger, effort needs to go into changing the suburbs in place to be more environmentally benign. For example, imagine the typical mall or office park converted into a village center with everything you need for day to day living - e.g. grocery and hardware stores as well as clothes and jewelry and luggage. Replace the massive parking lots and six-lane highways with a bus lane, a separate bike lane, medium-density housing, and some park land. Now you have an actual functioning village, with far less disruption and environmental cost than a wholesale move to the city. For all the talk about the "missing middle" in building sizes, I think it's a shame that the missing middle in community sizes tends to be overlooked. We don't need more people living in dense urban cores, with their own characteristic costs and problems. We need more - and more human centered - villages and towns. It's the dichotomy between super high density and super low density that we need to smash.

[the-prophesied-disco-gay]

The comments on this post really show how wildly different homeschooling is from place to place in this country. Because it's not federally regulated, experiences vary wildly.

I homeschooled my eldest for most of school and my youngest for part of it, though she is back in public school now. It was not a religious or fundamentalist curriculum at all and it exceeded all state requirements. We also had to notify the state each year we intended to homeschool and keep all records for review to make sure they were getting adequate education. It was neither unregulated nor extreme, and provided us a way to maintain our kids education when public school wasn't an option. When my youngest reached a point of being able to return to public school, the autoimmune stuff was well controlled enough for it to be safe, she was above grade level. We also made sure they were able to maintain social lives, extra-curriculars (most districts will allow homeschooled kids to enroll in public school extra-curriculars like sports and clubs and band), and field trips.

Now, to be clear, that is not how it usually goes. Our situation is unusual and many homeschooling situations absolutely are abusive and/or neglectful. I'm not sharing this to go "nu uh!" about the issues that have been raised here.

We had 4 MAJOR factors that impacted this process:

1. Homeschooling is not unregulated in my state. They keep an eye on the homeschooled kids the same as the public school kids. There are requirements for curriculum, testing, immunizations, attendance, all of it. It's not exactly the same (for instance, attendance is based on work completed, not hours sat in a chair, because most of the homeschooled kids here are either very ill/disabled or they have a career, like acting or music, that requires travel) but it's enough to help make it both safer and better for the needs of the kids. They even have homeschool options through public school, where kids can video chat with their classmates and teachers. That system was already in place when Covid hit and they simply transferred all students to it when needed. It was one of the smoothest transitions in the country, because we had systems in place for homeschooled kids.

2. I went to college to become a teacher and worked as one for a while. I know how to plan a curriculum, how to build lessons, how to incorporate day to day experiences into learning. Fractions in the kitchen and geometry in the backyard and history at the art museum and econ at the grocery store. Education didn't have set hours. It was incorporated into their day to day, and they still seek out information on their own all the time because of those habits. Being educated as a teacher, even if it didn't become my career, gave me an enormous advantage in homeschooling my kids.

3. We are poor. Like not "oh no how are we going to afford car repairs" kind of poor. "Walking around town to collect change off the sidewalk to get a dollar for toilet paper" kind of poor. But we live in a very poor state, so there are many supports for poverty. Free museum days at both the art museum and the natural history museum, occassional free community days at the science museum, free admission to all state parks and monuments and ruins, lots of library activities, free zoo and aquarium admission certain days, there is SO MUCH available if you qualify, which we did. This allowed us to incorporate a large amount of learning without having to pay for hundreds in materials. The library also had workbooks that we could use as long as we didn't write directly in them. Lots of resources.

4. I am chronically ill and disabled. It is hereditary. My kids are chronically ill and disabled. I was not diagnosed until after they were born, so it's been a learning curve for all of us. My eldest especially could NOT handle public school. It was killing her. That's not hyperbolic. We went through 3 schools in 3 years trying to find accommodations that would work for her. We were unable to. It was her doctor that first suggested homeschooling. My kids are happier and healthier and more successful because I was able to homeschool them. There was an enormous reduction in trauma. Because homeschooling allows a tailoring and flexibility that public school does not, an environment that public school cannot customize in that way, a methodology that can be adjusted based on individual needs. I have kids that *needed* homeschooling because of the ways in which it differs.

Maybe these could be some starting points for how to make it better and safer nationwide? I don't know all the answers, but I know what worked for us and why it worked for us.

Anyway enough lame gifted kid discourse we are in our 20s. Let's talk about how homeschooling in america should be fucking illegal it's insane lol

[blue-opossum]

Front Yard Tombs (on Stadcor Street)

        Front Yard Tombs (on Stadcor Street)

        Sunday morning, 23 April 2023.

        2 minutes 45 seconds to read.

        Dream #: 20,579-02.

        The natural virtual amnesia of navigating imagination without real-world consciousness or legitimate memories places me in an imaginary version of the Stadcor Street house in Wavell Heights, where we have not lived in years.

        I pull some "overgrown shrubbery" (though as if it was piles of soft hay) from atop a wall (fictitious feature) adjacent to the public footpath.

        Despite the property never being a family-owned home in Australia (where my parents and ancestors have never been), there are at least eight tombs of relatives on my father's side in two tiers of four. I have the impression they were mostly people who lived in the 1800s. I know the (top of the) heads of the remains point toward the street, and that side is where the plaques indicating their names are.

        I see a wooden box atop the wall above the tomb of a male who I consider to be in a coffin above his wife. It is about the size of a jewelry box, and I think his wedding ring and maybe a few small keepsakes are inside. I realize it should not be so visible to the public as someone walking by could take it (though I do not think about how it must have remained there for over a hundred years). I pick it up and take it into the house.

        I open the box, and there is a human skeleton inside, but only about as long as my hand. The bones are dark, mostly black, and the head is at an angle to the side. (My perception is most vivid at this point. There is an eerie essence.) I consider it a child who died around ten years old, the son or daughter of one couple in the tomb.

        Somehow, there was a box inside this one (yet about the same size) containing the remains of a pet chicken. I return the miniature coffin to where it was (though the area is now different with a column I can put it behind).

        I want to tell the neighbors about a supposed tradition where the remains had a corn husk and feathers inside the ribs (which makes no sense because remains do not become a skeleton until time passes). I start to speak, but the four neighbors are talking to each other in the street and do not regard me.

        It is not unusual for my absence of real-world recall and viable thinking to be so extreme that human remains are miniature in a dream. I had a similar dream about my mother's entire remains occupying the small cardboard casket (with a plastic lid) as from the "Dark Shadows" board game.

        Ultimately, this marks a stage in my sleep cycle where human remains are a form of sleep simulacra (intuitive recognition that I am asleep) and the absence of real-world mobility. That is why my focus on the miniature skeleton was the most defined part of my dream. Specific responses to sleeping and REM atonia (and other factors) have resulted in the same narrative content in my dreaming experiences every sleep cycle for over 50 years.

        In this instance, in correspondence with real-world factors, Zsuzsanna and I were sleeping with our heads oriented toward the street. The wall reminds me of the walls with mailboxes for apartment buildings, so the proto-cognizant design establishes this unusual "communication" (sending letters) narrative (typically as precursory to the waking transition as in similar dreams of the past). (There was another dream from this sleep cycle featuring an elderly lady wanting me to read part of a letter for her - another proto-cognizant event.) 

        One end of my dream's wall correlated with where our mailbox was (concerning the public footpath) when we lived on Stadcor Street. A past dreaming experience transformed a building with tombs facing the outside into a post office wall with large drawers (that were crypts in the first part of the narrative - and I felt a similar essence in the back of my mind in this dream).

        PRECOGNITIVE: I saw this on YouTube recently:

        The above image was VERY similar to my dream! The content creator even said the same thing as I did in my dream! (Regarding how someone could just pick it up and so on). It was the cremated remains of a child just sitting in a box in a recess in the wall, so several attributes matched my dream regardless of the usual correspondance with navigating the dream state.

[continuations]

The World After Capital in 64 Theses

Over the weekend I tweeted out a summary of my book The World After Capital in 64 theses. Here they are in one place:

The Industrial Age is 20+ years past its expiration date, following a long decline that started in the 1970s.

Mainstream politicians have propped up the Industrial Age through incremental reforms that are simply pushing out the inevitable collapse.

The lack of a positive vision for what comes after the Industrial Age has created a narrative vacuum exploited by nihilist forces such as Trump and ISIS.

The failure to enact radical changes is based on vastly underestimating the importance of digital technology, which is not simply another set of Industrial Age machines.

Digital technology has two unique characteristics not found in any prior human technology: zero marginal cost and universality of computation.

Our existing approaches to regulation of markets, dissemination of information, education and more are based on the no longer valid assumption of positive marginal cost.

Our beliefs about the role of labor in production and work as a source of purpose are incompatible with the ability of computers to carry out ever more sophisticated computations (and to do so ultimately at zero marginal cost).

Digital technology represents as profound a shift in human capabilities as the invention of agriculture and the discovery of science, each of which resulted in a new age for humanity.

The two prior transitions, from the Forager Age to the Agrarian Age and from the Agrarian Age to the Industrial Age resulted in humanity changing almost everything about how individuals live and societies function, including changes in religion.

Inventing the next age, will require nothing short of changing everything yet again.

We can, if we make the right choices now, set ourselves on a path to the Knowledge Age which will allow humanity to overcome the climate crisis and to broadly enjoy the benefits of automation.

Choosing a path into the future requires understanding the nature of the transition we are facing and coming to terms with what it means to be human.

New technology enlarges the “space of the possible,” which then contains both good and bad outcomes. This has been true starting from the earliest human technology: fire can be used to cook and heat, but also to wage war.

Technological breakthroughs shift the binding constraint. For foraging tribes it was food. For agrarian societies it was arable land. Industrial countries were constrained by how much physical capital (machines, factories, railroads, etc.) they could produce.

Today humanity is no longer constrained by capital, but by attention.

We are facing a crisis of attention. We are not paying enough attention to profound challenges, such as “what is our purpose?” and “how do we overcome the climate crisis?”

Attention is to time as velocity is to speed: attention is what we direct our minds to during a time period. We cannot go back and change what we paid attention to. If we are poorly prepared for a crisis it is because of how we have allocated our attention in the past.

We have enough capital to meet our individual and collective needs, as long as we are clear about the difference between needs and wants.

Our needs can be met despite the population explosion because of the amazing technological progress we have made and because population growth is slowing down everywhere with peak population in sight.

Industrial Age society, however, has intentionally led us down a path of confusing our unlimited wants with our modest needs, as well as specific solutions (e.g. individually owned cars) with needs (e.g. transportation).

The confusion of wants with needs keeps much of our attention trapped in the “job loop”: we work so that we can buy goods and services, which are produced by other people also working.

The job loop was once beneficial, when combined with markets and entrepreneurship, it resulted in much of the innovation that we now take for granted.

Now, however, we can and should apply as much automation as we can muster to free human attention from the “job loop” so that it can participate in the “knowledge loop” instead: learn, create, and share.

Digital technology can be used to vastly accelerate the knowledge loop, as can be seen from early successes, such as Wikipedia and open access scientific publications.

Much of digital technology is being used to hog human attention into systems such as Facebook, Twitter and others that engage in the business of reselling attention,  commonly known as advertising. Most of what is advertised is  furthering wants and reinforces the job loop.

The success of market-based capitalism is that capital is no longer our binding constraint. But markets cannot be used for allocating attention due to missing prices.

Prices do not and cannot exist for what we most need to pay attention to. Price formation requires supply and demand, which don't exist for finding purpose in life, overcoming the climate crisis, conducting fundamental research, or engineering an asteroid defense.

We must use the capabilities of digital technology so that we can freely allocate human attention.

We can do so by enhancing economic, information, and psychological freedom.

Economic freedom means allowing people to opt out of the job loop by providing them with a universal basic income (UBI).

Informational freedom means empowering people to control computation and thus information access, creation and sharing.

Psychological freedom means developing mindfulness practices that allow people to direct their attention in the face of a myriad distractions.

UBI is affordable today exactly because we have digital technology that allows us to drive down the cost of producing goods and services through automation.

UBI is the cornerstone of a new social contract for the Knowledge Age, much as pensions and health insurance were for the Industrial Age.

Paid jobs are not a source of purpose for humans in and of themselves. Doing something meaningful is. We will never run out of meaningful things to do.

We need one global internet without artificial geographic boundaries or fast and slow lanes for different types of content.

Copyright and patent laws must be curtailed to facilitate easier creation and sharing of derivative works.

Large systems such as Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc. must be mandated to be fully programmable to diminish their power and permit innovation to take place on top of the capabilities they have created.

In the longrun privacy is incompatible with technological progress. Providing strong privacy assurances can only be accomplished via controlled computation. Innovation will always grow our ability to destroy faster than our ability to build due to entropy.

We must put more effort into protecting individuals from what can happen to them if their data winds up leaked, rather than trying to protect the data at the expense of innovation and transparency.

Our brains evolved in an environment where seeing a cat meant there was a cat. Now the internet can show us an infinity of cats. We can thus be forever distracted.

It is easier for us to form snap judgments and have quick emotional reactions than to engage our critical thinking facilities.

Our attention is readily hijacked by systems designed to exploit these evolutionarily engrained features of our brains.

We can use mindfulness practices, such as conscious breathing or meditation to take back and maintain control of our attention.

As we increase economic, informational and psychological freedom, we also require values that guide our actions and the allocation of our attention.

We should embrace a renewed humanism as the source of our values.

There is an objective basis for humanism. Only humans have developed knowledge in the form of books and works of art that transcend both time and space.

Knowledge is the source of humanity’s great power. And with great power comes great responsibility.

Humans need to support each other in solidarity, irrespective of such differences as gender, race or nationality.

We are all unique, and we should celebrate these differences. They are beautiful and an integral part of our humanity.

Because only humans have the power of knowledge, we are responsible for other species. For example, we are responsible for whales, rather than the other way round.

When we see something that could be improved, we need to have the ability to express that. Individuals, companies and societies that do not allow criticism become stagnant and will ultimately fail.

Beyond criticism, the major mode for improvement is to create new ideas, products and art. Without ongoing innovation, systems become stagnant and start to decay.

We need to believe that problems can be solved, that progress can be achieved. Without optimism we will stop trying, and problems like the climate crisis will go unsolved threatening human extinction.

If we succeed with the transition to the Knowledge Age, we can tackle extraordinary opportunities ahead for humanity, such as restoring wildlife habitats here on earth and exploring space.

We can and should each contribute to leaving the Industrial Age behind and bringing about the Knowledge Age.

We start by developing our own mindfulness practice and helping others do so.

We tackle the climate crisis through activism demanding government regulation, through research into new solutions, and through entrepreneurship deploying working technologies.

We defend democracy from attempts to push towards authoritarian forms of government.

We foster decentralization through supporting localism, building up mutual aid, participating in decentralized systems (crypto and otherwise).

We promote humanism and live in accordance with humanist values.

We recognize that we are on the threshold of both transhumans (augmented humans) and neohumans (robots and artificial intelligences).

We continue on our epic human journey while marveling at (and worrying about) our aloneness in the universe.

We act boldly and with urgency, because humanity’s future depends on a successful transition to the Knowledge Age.

[ghostgothgeek]

Map of Amity Park

So I did a bunch of research and traced over the map the GIW had in DCMH and extended it to try and build a map of Amity Park. I also paid close attention to locations and places named in canon. I am by no means an artist, map maker, photoshop pro, or civil engineer; I just wanted a general reference map for the phandom to use. 

Here is where I place Amity Park. We know AP isn’t in Michigan or Wisconsin, but is most likely a day drive away from Madison (Bitter Reunions). AP is a decent sized city of itself, so I can see it being an outskirt of a large city like Chicago. Lancer mentions the Northwestern Testing, and Northwestern University is in Evanston, IL, which is why I placed it where it is.

LIST OF PLACES (in great detail): 

Every city needs it’s basic services: energy supply, water supply, sewage, and trash/recycling. These of course are located more on the edge of the city, as they need a large amount of space and are typically isolated.

I placed a local airport in the city as well. Typically you would fly out of one of Chicago’s airports anyway, but private planes (Vlad, Mansons, etc.) can take off and land here. 

University of Amity Park is located at the north side of the city, and is home to a Nasty Burger location, an LGBT Center, and is probably near a gas station. The blocks surrounding the campus are more student housing. 

Near the University, we have the Science Center, Axion Labs, a Mental Institute, and the Museum, as a lot of research from the University would go into those places. 

In the more isolated areas, we have the Penitentiary, the abandoned North Mercy Hospital, and the GIW Headquarters. 

The Zoo is located on the north side of the park and is also close to the University for research purposes.

The Observatory is also located in a more isolated area, so you can actually see the stars without a bunch of light pollution.

Going into the center of town, where most things are actually located:

A community college, which is near the internet cafe where Danny and Tucker play games, a gas station, a liquor store, a thrift shop, a Planned Parenthood, Java Jive (the coffee shop), a tech store, and a gym. 

We also have a shoe store, the hunting goods store and Guitar Palace that Skulker and Ember take over in Reign Storm, the U-Ship Box Store the Box Ghost takes over, a barber and a hardware store.

There is a hair salon, tanning salon, and nail salon, where Paulina frequents. There is also Elmer’s Pharmacy, a dentist office, a law office, the TV repair store, butcher shop, and pet store (which we see next to each other in an episode), a toy store, and a vet office.

Government buildings include City Hall, a public library, a court house, a DMV, a bus station (for all mass transit in the city), a community center (likely where town halls are located and other smaller events; Ida plays bingo here every week), and a retirement home. 

There is also the post office, Amity Park Fire Department, a bank, the 24K Jewelry shop, a nearby ice cream shop, and another Nasty Burger location (this is the one right by Casper High that the trio usually hangs at). Also an animal shelter, a grocery store, and a pizza joint.

Education: there is a preschool and daycare, the elementary school, a playground/park, the middle school (yes, a Beetlejuice reference), and Casper High. Casper High campus also has the track, a fieldhouse, and the football field. 

Moving towards Amity Park Mall:

Bucky’s Music Mega Store, an apartment complex, Amity Park Police Department, a bookstore, doctor clinic, gas station, a Denny’s (where Phight Club happens), Material Grill restaurant, the mini golf course and bowling alley, Freddy Fazbear’s (which is actually a horror video game, but here it’s a kids pizza place like Chuck E. Cheese), a furniture store, a party supply store, and the movie theater (which is Marmel’s Multiplex 22, Amity Park Multiplex, and Googolplex Cinemas...it seems that they go to the same movie theater throughout the series and the names just change, or these could also be other movie theaters in the area (like near the college campus). I just picked Multiplex 22 cause it sounded very mall-y).

Along the interstate, there’s a pawn shop, a publishing house (which somehow prints all 5 of Amity Park’s newspapers), a homeless shelter, the diner, Safe House Motel, a laundromat, the 89¢ Store (a nod to Fanning the Flames), and the car dealership.

Also near the mall is Amity Arena, which hosts concerts, sports events, and other large entertainment events. There is a hotel near both the arena and the hospital (the one that isn’t abandoned and haunted). Towards the outskirts of the hospital, there’s a trailer park; north a few blocks is the TV station, where News 4 is headquartered. There’s also a construction site near Amity Arena, but that kinda went out the window when Undergrowth hit. 

On the other side of town, we have:

A-Mart, a convenience store. I named it like this because it can be like an offshoot of KMart, but A for Amity! 

Floody Waters, right off the interstate.

North of Floody Waters, East of Casper High, we have the main residences: the Foley household and only a couple blocks away is Fenton Works. 

There’s also another gas station and the Amity Park Radio Station nearby. There’s also a private school near ultra posh Polter Heights, but the A-Listers attend Casper High because the private school doesn’t have a football or cheerleading team.

Moving into Polter Heights and the surrounding area:

The Polter Heights Golf Course and Country Club are exclusive to those in the neighborhood, as well as their private neighborhood pool; members only. 

The Mayor’s Mansion (eventually Vlad’s) is located in here too.

All of the A-Listers’ houses are of course in this neighborhood, as well as Val’s previous residence and the Fenton’s temporary mansion from Living Large (which is of course right next door to Vlad, but with some distance, because the rich are always socially distancing with their big houses).

Polter Heights is adjacent to a bunch of farmland (this is the midwest, we like cows and stuff), and there is a church close by as well.

Just outside Polter Heights is the Manson Mansion (with Sam’s greenhouse). Lucky for Sam, the Skulk and Lurk Books and an occult shop are just down the street. The Manson residence is also near a funeral home and graveyard (how did Sam get so lucky? Oh, because I love her), a synagogue, Mario’s restaurant, and a dry cleaners. 

We get more spacious as we get away from the center of town! 

Along the shore of Lake Eerie, there are the docks which are home to many warehouses, including the mattress factory.

Also along the shoreline, there is a pier which doubles as an amusement park (think kinda like Navy Pier in Chicago in comparison) and alongside the pier is the public beach area. 

Camp Skull and Crossbones is located on the other side of Lake Eerie, and the fishing area is more on the north side of the lake. Lake Eerie is not one of the Great Lakes, it’s just its own thing in Amity Park. 

Back towards the park, we have event grounds space, which is where Circus Gothica is located, as well as the Meet Swap and flea market. Basically whatever rotating event hits town, it comes right here. Just next door is a theatre (for music, opera, Broadway, etc.). There is also the third and final Nasty Burger location in AP.

This is all surrounding the actual park Amity Park, which has a pond, a big fountain, and also hosts that really big hill that overlooks City Hall.

On the south side, across the bridge and over the interstate is Elmerton, where Val currently is resided. 

All the other blocks are filled with more office buildings, apartment complexes, houses, and businesses, but all of the main places are already listed and placed. 

Finally, yes, I did name some places for myself and my friends because they’re great and they deserve it. These include Steph’s (mine) Occult Shoppe, Nick’s Liquor Emporium (@ecto-american), Lexx R Us Toystore (@lexosaurus and appropriately named after the Lexxpocalypse), Laz’s Law Offices LLC (@kinglazrus), Dee’s Dentistry (@qlinq-qhost​), Lily’s Looks Thrift Store (@dannyphantomisameme​), Ceci’s Funeral Home (@ceciliaspen​), Vic’s Amusement Park (@babypop-phantom​), and Reverie Books (@wastefulreverie​). 

[eels-eels-eelsrobot]

Broke: "it belongs in a museum" is both meant literally in the films and is supposed to be seen as always good.

Woke: "it belongs in a museum" is settler-colonialist perspective, a perpetuation of the idea that cultures with ancient places are all dead and thus looting said places and taking historical items away is at worst a neutral act and possibly even a good act.

Bespoke: while the above is true, it does not have to be the end of the story and the trilogy itself starts to realize that as it goes on.

In the first movie we have Indy in the opening stealing items from a temple that belongs to a still living people and said items are casually sold to a museum in what is effectively a transition scene. And famously the Ark of the Covenant itself, an item that holds significance to lots of people around the world, including one of Jones' creators, is treated as this ancient thing. A thing whose power is to be respected, sure but not much else. While it being stored away in a warehouse at the end of the film is seen as a bad thing, it is seen as bad mostly for the loss of potential knowledge from studying it, rather than because a large people group does not have access to an item of immense importance to them.

In the second film, while set earlier shows an almost deconstruction of the ideas of the first one: Temple makes no two ways about Indy hunting down artifacts for the highest bidder in the first scene and he is openly motivated to find the stones in the rest of the film for "fortune and glory". However, this greed slowly melts away from him until by the third act he is wholly motivated by the need to rescue these kids and to give the stones back to people who could actually use them. "If they were in a museum they would just be another rock collecting dust."

In Last Crusade we see an interesting take. 'it belongs in a museum" as a phrase is taken entirely from this film but in the context of the film, it is not in response to a person in their final resting place or a religious item in it's holy place, but to a private collector wanting to keep a historical item all to himself for the simple sake of having it. In this light, Indy's phrase is less about theft, and more about access and public knowledge. He wants the cross in a museum because more people would be able to learn about it and it's history then people would if it was just an accessory for some guy. Furthermore, we have Elsa, who's greed in the third act, simply wanting an item without giving respect to it ("she never wanted the Grail, she thought she had a price") is her own downfall and and when Indy nearly falls into the same emotional trap seconds later, it is a reminder of who he is that reminds him that there are more important things then taking an artifact to different country.

Put all together, it seems a valid read and one that has aged better then it's more common interpretation is that 'it belongs in a museum" could be better phrased as "it should have more accessibility."

[laundryandtaxes]

healthliberationnow (.) com/2022/04/02/leaked-audio-confirms-genspect-director-as-anti-trans-conversion-therapist-targeting-youth/ how do you reconcile this when listening? I feel like there’s nowhere for me to go as someone who doesn’t think my dysphoria is proof of an innate gender identity but also doesn’t support debunked pseudoscience used to hurt people like AGP/ROGD. I feel really hopeless.

I think there's very little basis for tossing AGP and ROGD as concepts into the junk bin as "debunked pseudoscience," though I think the place of each in the discussions is unnecessarily and suspiciously large in a way that does imply really troubling things to me- a baseline discomfort with male gender nonconformity on the one hand such that any interaction between a person's sexual orientation and their day to day behavior is cast not just as fetishim but a violent fetishism even though both heterosexual and homosexual people's daily behavior is obviously impacted by their sexual orientation, and a baseline discomfort on the other with the question of why children who are NOT easily sorted into the easy peasy ROGD category, who were very gender nonconforming children who are likely to grow into very gender nonconforming adults, would be so uncomfortable in their bodies that they would be dreaming of not having them. To be clear, I think we probably agree that the terms are not "scientific;" that is to say, I don't think they speak to some natural, non-social truth. I think they are terms (frankly, like "gender dysphoria") that human beings invented to describe human phenomena that are experienced by real human beings in ways that the affected will tell you deeply impact their lives, and that they create frameworks that prove themselves very useful for understanding those phenomena. For ROGD in particular, I think people who find it to be an offensive proposition that teenaged girls would spread a form of expressing emotional distress among themselves need to explain why they find that proposition offensive in and of itself because I've seen absolutely 0 good reasons to make that jump myself, and secondly they need to offer up their alternative explanation for the rapid rise in non-female identification among girls and young women, and in order for me to find that alternative explanation as compelling it would need to account for things ROGD accounts for like social pressure to be associated with marginalized people, and the outright swap from mostly male to mostly female patients in gender clinics, and the phenomenon of entire friend groups identifying as nonbinary one by one.

As for Stella O'Malley's opposition to pediatric medical transition, firstly it doesn't bother me because I share it, but secondly it's not anything close to a secret that she generally opposes the medicalization of gendered distress in children. I am pretty sure it's why the podcast began. But even if I had really major reservations about that, I would very possibly still really enjoy the podcast, because a podcast is not "a place for me to go," it's a piece of media in which ideas that I personally find very interesting and meaningful and relevant are discussed. And I think that parasocial relationships and the cultural acceptance of them have helped to land us culturally where we are right now, where we can't even ask questions or discuss these things in public without being shouted down by people who don't even bother to offer up their own ideas. I really really enjoy the podcast, and I have some admiration for Sasha in particular, but I don't have a personal relationship with either person, I enjoy the thing they created because I find the discussions interesting and I regularly find myself in disagreement and agreement with these two women, who are perfect strangers to me. I am also a firearms enthusiast and I regularly watch videos or take classes or passingly discuss hobbies with on the internet people whose opinions on any number of things I would likely find absolutely abhorrent if I approached every interaction like an interaction with my best friend in the whole world.

[dunmertitty]

i think it’s also important to point out that one of the first gender clinics opened in 1919 (the institute of sexual research in berlin by magnus hirshfeld) and not in the 1960s, however i have not read the full text so the author may be referring to a specific place/country or a specific type of gender clinic. other than that, everything said in that text is correct!

but i find its very important to point out that so many later clinics seem to have such a restrictive and regressive view on gender and sexuality because the institute of sexual research was raided, staff and residents beaten and jailed and some killed, books and research destroyed and burned, and eventually the building burned as well, it set back the research two decades.

magnus and the institute weren’t perfect but they were much more progressive than many clinics open even today. over 100 years later. there were job placement and housing programs. you could receive transitional (and general health!) care without having to strive to be A Good Heterosexual or prove that you could live as a Properly Behaving member of the sex you were transitioning to.

he coined/popularized the word transsexual to differentiate between people who crossdress for fun/work and people who seek to actively live as a different sex full time.

magnus hirshfeld, a gay jewish man, was exiled from germany before the institute was raided and continued his activism in other countries but mainly focusing on women’s voting rights and equality in heterosexual couples, while having to hide his opinions on queer sexuality gender in public for fear of safety

i think it’s important to talk about how one of the first gender clinicians was so progressive because he was a gay jewish man. and how he saw that the struggles of transvestites and transsexuals (now under the general transgender umbrella) and gay people and women’s rights were all connected. because it’s common among left leaning transphobes to say that trans people are taking away their rights. “stealing” gender nonconforming people. trying to “turn” or “correct” gay people. that trans women are “corrupting womanhood” or “setting back women’s rights”. and look to things like homophobic gender clinics that force us to conform to gender conformity and heterosexuality if we want to get the healthcare that we need as if the system that we are reliant and dependent on speaks for our actual thoughts and feelings and political views. transphobes let the cisgender heterosexual and largely male healthcare system speak for us instead of allowing us to speak for ourselves

obviously magnus was a cis male and had that male bias (mentioned in the paper above), but many of the sexologists after him (in the 60s as the paper mentioned) were heterosexual. magnus being a gay man (and a drag queen) and a jewish man which both gave him insights that helped him empathize with the transsexual experience. he knew that the “correct” way to be a certain gender didn’t have to include heterosexuality. he knew that jewish people were often labeled as deviants and had double standards associated with being seen as a ‘real’ man or a ‘real’ woman by the majority culture. he listened to trans people. he was in community with trans people.

the institute was burned and two decades of research was lost, but clinics have taken over a century to recover to something even resembling what magnus was doing because his research, which allowed for queer transness, was destroyed. and so the allowance for queer transness was destroyed and replaced with a hetero-centric system that TOLD trans people what we were instead of asking us what we need.

[tomorrowxtogether]

K-pop group TXT is coming of age in front of the world & capturing it all on their new album “The Chaos Chapter: FIGHT OR ESCAPE.”

Last October, Tomorrow X Together (TXT) released the song “We Lost the Summer.” Singing of closed cafes, expressionless faces behind masks and a calendar perpetually paused in March 2020, it’s a poignant pop song referencing the small, intimate ways the pandemic has taken its toll on us. We’re now almost a year on from that song, and that lost season of possibility turned into Winter, which then turned Spring and now we’re faced with the harsh reality that another one may have been and gone without us really realising. For many of us, the passing of time, and the changes it brought with it, have largely taken place away from the world, for TXT they’ve happened out loud for everyone to see – and that’s part of the point.

Quickly following the release of their second full-length album “The Chaos Chapter: FREEZE,” the group released an album repackage (the first in their discography) called “The Chaos Chapter: FIGHT OR ESCAPE” last month. The record, building on the previous with three new songs including lead single “LO$ER=LO♡ER,” marks a distinctive shift in both sound and subject for the group. Whilst previous songs dealt with the rollercoaster of youth, friendship and identity, these new ones, laced with a new and distinct pop-punk quality, tackle more mature themes like love, heartbreak and uncertainty for the future. That growth is not only integral to the message of their music but emblematic of what TXT has come to stand for.

Made up of Soobin, Yeonjun, Beomgyu, Taehyun and Huening Kai & having emerged onto the scene just a couple of years ago, the group has grown up not only in themselves but also under the spotlight of the public. It’s part of the ‘chaos’ that makes up their journey together, the unique juxtaposition of figuring things out while also being beacons for others figuring it out too. It’s a singularly Gen Z conundrum, because no generation of young people has ever lived as publicly, or been as connected, as right now. Growing up is now no longer a personal journey, but one experienced in full view, warts and all, and shared openly with the world. It’s no wonder then that TXT, a group that has been dubbed ‘Gen Z it boys’, has impacted fans as much as they have with their honesty and vulnerability. Coming of age is always a transition fraught with challenges that etch into our DNA forever, and TXT are doing that in 2021 and in the eyes of the world. But it’s a fight they’re willing to tackle head-on.

Speaking to 1883, TXT discusses their creative process as a group, what it’s like to grow up alongside their fanbase, and seeking empathy through music.

Congratulations on the release of “The Chaos Chapter: FIGHT OR ESCAPE”! It’s now been out for a few weeks, how do you feel about it being out in the world? How does it feel to see people respond so positively to it?

YEONJUN: It feels fantastic. Our music tells our story, so it truly means a lot to us that so many people all over the world are listening to and loving our music. Our story is about living and growing in the current generation, so I think what’s happening is that our contemporaries, Gen Z, as well as everyone who has already lived through this stage within their own lives have had similar experiences and felt the emotions that we have felt. They recognise these stories as stories of their own and sympathise with them. It’s really a brilliant thing. We’re very happy and grateful for it all.

With every new release, it feels like you are able to contribute more of your own creative ideas. Do you enjoy that ability to speak personally through your music? How would you say your creative processes differ?

TAEHYUN: With each new song and album, the five of us are taking on more and more active roles from the creative perspective. This is because we want our music to reflect our stories and narratives as candidly and genuinely as possible. So we make efforts, eagerly, in all aspects of the album-making process, whether it be related to the songs themselves, the choreography, or even the concepts and styling. In my case, I gather inspiration in a perhaps anticlimactic manner: I just sit at my desk in the studio and let the ideas come to me.

SOOBIN: I usually work on music in the evenings and nights, sometimes past midnight as well. I relax into my emotions and embrace the thoughts and feelings that emerge, then I try to translate them musically in order to tell my story.

YEONJUN: My work process is very on the go. I’m always thinking about ideas and ready to note them down as they come using whatever device is available. I’m detail-oriented when it comes to music. I try to understand and dive deep into each song.

BEOMGYU: I take a hands-on approach to songwriting. Whenever I get an idea I try to develop each one immediately. I usually get my inspiration by sitting alone in the dark with all the lights off.

HUENINGKAI: I write songs with the piano! Melody first, then accompaniment!

Your music has always spoken to young people, growing in themes as they grow up with you. From friendship to love, are there any further themes you want to expand on?

HUENINGKAI: We want to expand our story and continue to sing about the growth we will achieve in the coming days, as individuals and youth as well as a group. The five of us believe that growth is an ongoing, constant process so we want to record the experiences, thoughts and emotions candidly through our music. I don’t know what exactly this will entail — none of us do — but I very much look forward to it. I suppose one wish and goal is that whatever this may be, many people all over the globe will continue to empathise and relate to the stories we tell. We want them to feel like this is their story.

You’ve tackled the pandemic head-on in previous music, and it feels like your latest albums tackle that interesting symbiosis of dealing with new and challenging things at a personal level while also trying to make sense of the greater world around us. Do you feel like you’re working through that as well through your music?

BEOMGYU: We are definitely taking on new challenges and growing through every experience. We tackle various genres of music and dance styles which provide us with opportunities for learning. Every member is taking on bigger roles and increasing their contribution with each album, and I think the improvement in quality reflects our dedication. I’m proud of our team and this constant growth we’re managing to achieve means a lot to us. I also do feel that we’re growing as individuals as we process multiple themes and scenarios, dealing with and expressing our emotions. So yes, I feel that this process helps us see and learn from the world around us.

The past year and a half have been really challenging in terms of artists being able to promote music and meet their fans, but also it must have been difficult to tackle so early in your career. How have you coped with these changes? Do you lean on each other for support?

SOOBIN: It was a difficult year for everyone in the world. As for the five of us, our field is music. We’re performers. We’re meant to be out there, singing and performing in front of crowds so it was admittedly rough that circumstances prevented us from doing so. It’s different performing in silence and missing the cheers and calls from our fans. But we did try our best to stay connected with our MOA through, of course, music, as well as social media platforms like TikTok, Twitter and Weverse. We wanted to stay true to ourselves and to present ourselves as we are, and our fans are great. They recognised this. Baring our hearts and thoughts and communicating with our fans have helped us to get through these difficult times. We [the 5 of us] have also been a great support for one another. I’m very thankful to them for always being by my side. I really believe that we raise one another up and that we’re becoming an even stronger and more cohesive team.

You’ve been able to connect more to your fans in the last year and a half, despite not being able to meet them personally. It also feels like more fans than ever are turning to their favourite artists for comfort as the world continues to be challenging to navigate. Do you feel a sense of responsibility? Or is it also a comfort to have them to turn to as well?

YEONJUN: Music does give me a lot of joy. There’s joy in that we can share our music and therefore our emotions, and there’s also the remarkable thrill in performing in front of crowds. We’re honestly very grateful that our music can be of help and provide strength and comfort to other people. One thing we want to remind our listeners of is that just as they find strength in our music, we find strength from all those who empathise with our songs and communicate with us in whatever way possible. I think that our relationship with MOA is a reciprocal one. We connect and persevere together. And through our MOA, we get to see and experience so much more than I’d otherwise see with just my two eyes. I learn more about the world through them, and for that, I’m very thankful.

You’ve been described as a spokesgroup for Gen Z, but do you also feel like you get the chance to experience the challenges of the people you’re speaking to?

YEONJUN: Since our debut, we’ve always told our own stories about living and growing in this generation. And we do believe that the experiences and emotions that accompany growth are ones that many others of our generation, Gen Z, and all those who have already been in this stage of their lives can relate to. After all, we’re all living in the current generation together. People have already come to us and told us that they found the stories in our music relatable. No matter where we all are in the world, we’re all continuing our own journey of growth. So yes, I do believe that we’re all sharing the emotions that accompany “growth”. Our story is for everyone.

It’s been a couple of years since your debut, are there any changes you’ve noticed in yourselves and each other since that time?

HUENINGKAI: We’ve grown a little taller, physically. But jokes aside, I think our teamwork has solidified even more. We understand one another to deeper levels and our relationship is that of family. We’ve also become more proficient at our jobs: working on music. We partake in various aspects of the creatives, and we also now work quicker on things like lyric-writing. I think we’ve also become better at portraying emotions through our music.

SOOBIN: I’ve mentioned this before, but I think I’ve become a more assertive person. I’m certainly better now at expressing my feelings and opinions. It’s all thanks to our members and our fans for all the support they’ve given. I really believe that I’m growing into myself. And it isn’t just me — we all communicate more freely and easily as a team. It’s probably all the time and experiences we share. That, and they’re all really good guys.

Recently celebrated the birthday of your fan group [called MOA] – how has your relationship evolved with MOA since your debut?

TAEHYUN: We’ve been together for a long time, and we have longer days ahead of us. Our MOA have watched us closely by our sides — they know and understand us to that degree. And we, in turn, experience things and learn from MOA. I think our friendship has become stronger over the years. Our MOA are our most reliable companions and I look forward to each new tomorrow we’ll share with them.

It seems like you have a great relationship with many of your contemporaries and fellow artists – taking part in TikTok challenges and shouting them out on social media – do you feel a sense of closeness with them thanks to your similar experiences?

BEOMGYU: We’re in the same age group so yes, there are a lot of commonalities as fellow Gen Z. These qualities we share do make online exchanges much more enjoyable. We sometimes start challenges as well, and yes, we get excited when our fans decide to join in on the fun. We’re keeping an eye on all of them. These are fun to do, but they’re just so much better when we all enjoy these challenges together.

Finally, do you have any future goals that you really want to work towards – either in your music or personally? And are there any places you would love to perform in the future?

TAEHYUN: We’re going to continue to challenge ourselves musically, so that we can continue to grow and polish our unique sound and identity. A big goal is definitely to visit our MOA all over the world and to perform for them in person — to enjoy their company from on stage and vice versa. But for now, we’re eager to wrap up 2021 on a good note. 2021 has been an incredible year for us. We have our first exclusive concert on 3 October, and we also have a Japanese EP ready for November. We’re more than excited. We hope everyone will enjoy it all, as much as we will.