#society-s-increasing-stupidity

[thepersonalquotes]

You jealous souls are primeval without a doubt,Teach yourself to eat better instead of trying to eat one's heart out.

Adhish Mazumder, Versed with Life

[ominouspositivity-or-else]

per ordained anon ask

PLEASEPLEASE RANT

okay so i've only studied the American Women's ordination Movement, but I think it's really interesting because although the movement began technically in the 1930's with the Saint Joan Association, it only actually gained traction in 1963, which was the year The Feminine Mystique was published, as well as the year that Pacem In Terris was put out by the Vatican. Pacem In Terris says that, "Women are gaining an increasing awareness of their natural dignity. Far from being content with a purely passive role or allowing themselves to be regarded as a kind of instrument, they are demanding both in domestic and in public life the rights and duties which belong to them as human persons" (Pope John XXIII, para. 41). This was a super important and influential document and it's really really cool go read it. However at this point in time culturally in America the Catholic Church was dealing with a lot of secular problems as it comes to women's places in the home and in social life, because America is dealing with the way that the 1950's fucked women over. There were a lot of real problems in the American Catholic church, such as women getting publicly admonished from the pulpit while in mass for not wearing their veils properly, and priests publishing and saying degrading things about women, like how they would never be able to understand philosophy. At the same time, the secular world has utterly degraded women in the home. A woman named Sidney Callahan wrote a book titled The Illusion of Eve which is essentially The Feminine Mystique but applied to Catholicism. As far as i can tell. I'm working of an excerpt, currently, but I ordered the book. One of the things I found incredibly interesting in this excerpt was the following:

The problem of woman's role soon expands to the problem of man and woman's role. For one thing, an unqualified, uncritical acceptance of the "masculine" values of our culture is suspect. Are the equal work of women and equal opportunities only to be for the sake of exploiting others and aggressively achieving selfish ends? No wonder there is a contempt for all "stupid" manual work, especially unpaid (unselfish?) domestic work in the home. For this group the only work that counts is that intellectual, professional work which our society rewards with status and financial emoluments. Ultimately, the "worthwhile" is determined by the society.

In another place, she says,

""Losing one's life in order to find it" makes no sense to the secular world; women who choose a hidden life of sacrifice in the home, or worse still the convent, are viewed as neurotic seekers for martyrdom. All such sacrifice has become suspect. Love, and its desires to give oneself to husband and many children, is discounted as contributing to a husband's "infantile phantasy" or a neurotic escape into "breeding." However, when all vocations and free choices are encouraged except the traditional feminine role, a new tyranny and a new stereotype have simply replaced the old one”

You can argue with her all you like, I suppose, but I find it to be incredibly interesting how she approaches this. Women in the 1960's were caught in a very weird place culturally, and Callahan really points this out and focuses on it. That's all just background information to the focus of this rant though.

Anyways the encyclical Pacem In Terris was a ton of encouragement for Catholic feminists in America, because in America, freedom and "gaining an increasing awareness of their natural dignity" in the secular realm looks like having the same rights and abilities as a man, like to own property and sign things and be paid the same for equal work(Also at the time the sexual revolution was taking place which slowly put more and more emphasis on women being identical to man in physical and reproductive ways as well), so this naturally translated over to the spiritual even though it shouldn't have. Women started advocating for their inclusion into the priesthood pretty quickly and happily, saying essentially that the Catholic Church is denying them full personhood by refusing their entrance into it. This creates a false equivalency between priesthood and personhood, which has never been something the church has ever taught. However, from this false equivalency, women advocating for admittance to the priesthood were advocating, in their own minds, for their rights as persons. I hope you can see where this is about to go.

Anyways, to be honest, the goals of this initial push for the ordination of women are very amicable, ordered towards a genuine American equality, and pointing out usually how if the soul is unsexed, then what is between us is just bodies, which there are social stigmas about, not spiritual. One Catholic Feminist, Anne Elizabeth Carr, stated the goal of this as follows:

The priesthood will no longer be a male-dominated club with restricted membership, a bureaucratic hierarchy, but an open, collegial spiritual service of unity. Nor will ordination do away with the variety of functions in the Church. Only some ministries appropriately call for official appointment and sacramental ordination. But those women who have led a community in prayer on campuses, in homes for the aged, in hospitals, prisons, neighborhoods, who have counseled retreatants in their own discovery of God or the experience of reconciliation recognize that the ability to celebrate the eucharistic meal, to baptize new life into the Church, to give absolution is the appropriate sacramental expression of the liberating action of Christ's grace in their ministries. For our tradition, in which sacramental experience is central, the ordination of women will be a sign of the Church's attentiveness to the concrete experience of its people, of its awareness of where God's grace is working in people's lives, where the authentic ministry of the word is occurring.

This is really cool! The end goal here is women who are dedicated to their churches being welcomed into something really important to them, with a real understanding of how powerful sacraments are, and the place in the community that Catholic Priests are given, and an emphasis on the role that women play within the church already! There is also quite a bit of hope surrounding this movement because of Vatican 2 and the brand new Novus Ordo mass. The church has already changed and uprooted so much to bring itself into the new time, to adapt and be ready for the now that everyone is living in, to evangelize and teach as Christ wants, that of course, in these American Catholic Feminists' minds, the women should be included into the priesthood, too! We're making our church better in the spirit of reform and renewal. That's what this all is about.

The Church, in 1976, released a document titled "Declaration on the Question of Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood"(GO READ IT!!!! ITS REALLY GOOD!!!) And it's a well thought out, tasteful, educated and theological refutation of the idea that women might ever be incorporated into the Catholic Ministerial Priesthood. In one place in particular, the Church states,

the priest is a sign, the supernatural effectiveness of which comes from the ordination received, but a sign that must be perceptible18 and which the faithful must be able to recognise with ease. The whole sacramental economy is in fact based upon natural signs, on symbols imprinted on the human psychology: “Sacramental signs,” says Saint Thomas, “represent what they signify by natural resemblance.” The same natural resemblance is required for persons as for things: when Christ's role in the Eucharist is to be expressed sacramentally, there would not be this “natural resemblance” which must exist between Christ and his minister if the role of Christ were not taken by a man: in such a case it would be difficult to see in the minister the image of Christ. For Christ himself was and remains a man.

It's an excellent and true piece of writing. The Catholic church has rules about the acceptable gluten content in the bread used in the mass. However. This does not go over well with the American Catholic Feminists.

As I said before, personhood has been equated with the priesthood, at this point. and so when the church says no, the feminists hear, "You aren't enough." This quote, from a woman named Ann Ware(Emphasis Added by me), really gets to me, because I can hear the pain and feel the way she feels about what this says:

The Vatican's prohibition of the ordination of women because they do not bear a "natural resemblance" to Christ poses fascinating logical and theological conundrums. First of all, what is a natural resemblance but a resemblance in nature? The two natures in Christ have been declared by the Council of Nicaea to be: one human, one divine. Now we know (for Rome has told us so) that to be human is to be male. True God and true man = true God and true male.

Like stars above! Ouch! No wonder these women immediately began to react so poorly to this clear, loving and firm no, because THIS! IS WHAT! THEY HEARD! I'd be pissed at the Catholic Church, too! Not to say, of course, that this is correct theology, or even a correct reading, not at all, but just to illustrate what they're thinking and feeling at this point.

Now, from here, things go from a little off with the theology to full on. Just. Not theologically sound, anymore. A nun speaks out to Pope John Paul II when he visits the US in 1979 and tells him to reconsider. To his face. In an official address upon welcoming him(And we think people are disrespectful to the pope now!). Again, this nun, Theresa Kane, reiterates the false equivalency of membership, participation, and personhood to the priesthood, saying, "I urge you, Your Holiness, to be open to and respond to the voices coming from the women of this country who are desirous of serving in and through the Church as fully participating members." ((SHE SAID THIS TO HIS FACE. POPE SAINT JOHN PAUL THE SECOND. ANYWAYS. WHAT.))

From here, however, everything, respectfully, goes to hell with American Catholic Feminism. Fiorenza, a really polemic writer from the time, says that one woman she spoke to about the stance of the church on women not being allowed in to the priesthood said "I no longer can participate in a male-centered mass if I do not want to relinquish my faith in God and in the Christian Gospel. To witness the concelebration of ten or more men is to witness the demonstration of exclusive male power. The Eucharist has been perverted and become destructive of my Christian faith." Here is where we really start to see the shift in rhetoric. suddenly, the Church is the problem, rome is the problem, and even, as Fiorenza goes on to say in the VERY SAME ARTICLE,

Since Christian mythologies and theologies are created mostly by men they reflect the emotions and interests of men. These emotions and interests shaped by sexism are perpetuated by religious and theological patriarchal structures. We have therefore to recognize that the theological argument for women's ordination will not be won on logical and intellectual grounds. Logical and intellectual arguments will only produce further legitimizations for the existing sexist structures.

It's marxist now, anti-establisment, it's lost what it was even trying to be in the beginning. They've lost the plot, lost themselves, and it's gone so far as to become deconstructionism for the broader Church as a whole, down to its very base.

Because these women are no longer listening to Rome, no longer obeying the church, they've lost respect for everything about it. It's because of this beginning schism that these same women slowly became the Catholics for Free Choice, arguing that, "Statements of recent Popes and of the Catholic hierarchy have condemned the direct termination of pre-natal life as morally wrong in all instances. There is the mistaken belief in American society that this is the only legitimate Catholic position”(Catholics For Free Choice). Suddenly obedience to Rome has left the chat. Suddenly the Vatican might just be sexist and evil and wrong on matters of faiths and morals. And suddenly, there's a list of names of prominent Catholics in the newspaper, saying that they support abortion. Catholic Feminism in America has a new face, and that face has turned against Rome, probably for good.

Anyways, it's not this simple, of course, and there's so many other factors. But I do think it's incredibly interesting how the dominoes are put up and were knocked over. I hope you found this as entertaining as I did while researching!

If you're interested, I got a the list of sources I used in this post here.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

I Just-

No one cares to talk about it but let's just be upfront here. Hyper Christian Conservatism is what led to the issues in society we are dealing with now. Alienation and dismissal because "X is satanic" but now it's "X is just totally unattractive to women".

So let me explain a few things. 1. I don't believe this was a meme. I think you shared this thinking you wouldn't get fact checked. 2. Videogames do NOT cause increased aggression at all. And all studies have show you are factually wrong about that. 3. A lot of games, especially single player games are story based, and do you not participate in being 'sedentary' while you are reading?

So for real why do you people keep doing this? You keep saying shit that's fundamentally not true. And it doesn't matter if the original post was actually meant as a joke. The sentiment of it is one you share. Makes it seem like less of a joke. Christian Conservatives really need to get off this, "I'm better than you" high horse. It's no wonder that many of you from the 90's and 00's became Neo Progressive Puritans. Same "I'm above you" attitude but in a new Marxist skin. Though weirdly often equipped with far more bigotry. .....Hmm. Well anyways, screw yourself. You're not winning any cultural or political fights with this. And all you are doing, and all people like Matt Walsh are doing is turning people away from your beliefs. That's it.

And I don't want the Marxists to win but god you are making it so fucking hard to defend your side.

Also of interesting note. It's more funny you think that Taxidermy makes it more funny as a meme when it's often hunters that participate in that specific hobby. Or Ex hunters. So are you stupid? Or just ignorant.

[misfitwashere]

It would, of course, be naive to think that we are not in a moment of profound danger – MAGA is a fascist movement, and America is, in fact, at a dark turning point in its history. 

We are all grieving, and we are all devastated in our own way and for our own reasons. We will go through a period of introspection that will, at times, more resemble finger pointing. Some of this is an earnest attempt to cope and some of it is opportunism expressing itself. 

In my mind, coping must begin with the acceptance of two competing truths:

First, we are not to “blame” for what has happened. The path to fascism began when the GOP decided that its own voters were stepping stones to power rather than constituents. It continued when instead of focusing its energy and efforts on common challenges, it directed all of its strength against large swaths of American society and the foundations of democracy itself. We have fought at every turn to stop this, at times with notable successes. Morality, decency, and civic virtue must be present on all corners of the political universe for democracy to survive – there must be a universal orientation towards the common good, even if there is disagreement as to what that common good is. 

Second, we must acknowledge that there are significant portions of American society that are not hyper-radicalized fascists, yet do not understand the danger of fascism in the way that we understand it. Although our intentions, principles, and vision were the correct ones, the practical expression of our ideals in terms of messaging and execution did not accomplish the practical objective of mobilizing enough voters to our side. If we get another chance at this, we must develop messages, strategies, and means of communication that persuade persuadable voters. 

There are many smart voices out there that believe that all is lost. They may be right – we cannot face this moment if we are not willing to at least entertain the possibility that this narrative will end with mass executions and tyranny. 

That said, I believe that there are compelling reasons that all is not lost, and that fascism may not succeed in the United States. They are:

1.The United States is much more racially/ethnically diverse than was Germany, making the isolation and persecution of minorities more challenging.

2. Major civil liberties are codified in the Bill of Rights, supported by centuries of case law. Many who voted for Trump or failed to vote value these rights. 

3. The Federal system greatly increases the likelihood of institutionalized resistance at the state level and allows for the creation of practical, alternative paths forward. 

4. Unlike Germany, Italy, Russia, or Hungary, the United States has a well established democratic tradition. Democracy was very new in these other states when it fell or had never been present at all. 

5. The United States has living, credible former presidents and senior leaders. Individually and collectively, they have considerable experience, talent, and communication skills. 

6. We have a large, well-organized, and well-financed opposition. We did many, many things well this cycle and have many resources at our disposal. 

7. Other major democracies are our allies; the revanchism and irredentist motivations present in Weimar Germany are not present here. Germany had been vanquished in WWI by the world’s biggest democracies, a fact that helped discredit democracy. 

8. Modern technology makes it easier to capture and share abuses of power. It also makes it easier to communicate and organize in ways that were not possible in the 1930’s. 

9. Trump is old, stupid, and in severe cognitive decline.There is no hiding this. 

10. Demographically, the US is becoming less white and less religious – its central marks of identity ignore the heterogeneity of American society. 

11. Trump’s policies will be economically ruinous for people and companies alike.This has a way of capturing people’s attention. 

12. We have experience with Trump and the authoritarian playbook; we know their plans in advance and can prepare.

13. Many major, and popular, celebrities oppose Trump, and jailing or murdering them would be politically untenable.

14. Trump personally has no ambitions beyond himself; he’s not an ideologue or a self-styled “thinker”. He’s also unfocused and easily distracted.

15. The GOP often devolves into disorganization and infighting. They are evil, but not smart. They are also constrained at every turn by their need to deny reality. 

16. Even though the media has largely failed to rise to the occasion, there are many serious journalists in this country.

17. If Trump dies or is incapacitated, his successor is unlikely to have the same cachet and party support. Considerable energy will be consumed by those trying to seize the mantle of his authority. Nobody is going to defer to VD Vance. 

18. The military is largely independent and apolitical at the command level, and the rank and file is often nonwhite.

19. We are facing neither a credible external or internal threat for fascists to use as a foil. Although Trump has tried to portray us as communists, we are not, and his protestations do not actually make us such. 

20. The writings of the founding fathers and our national heroes are at direct odds with Trump; he cannot credibly claim to be their spiritual successor. Knowledge of and monuments to these are literally all across America. There is a great deal of history that will be very difficult to erase. 

Deal with your grief, and then figure out how to get back in this fight. They might as well have to work for it. 

[thinkdust]

21st August 2024

TW : a whole lotta cussing n s*xual subjects mentioned

I fucking hate dating apps. I was pressured by people and society to join. In our cult-like community, girls are "adviced" to be married off at like 18-19 or atleast be engaged, lest she go awry (live her goddamned life in her own way, plus she's a child, this is predatory behaviour). But being 23, I'm basically considered an "approaching old age" girl, which is so awful.

Like, i still have never left home or lived according to my needs, you'll take away my freedom before I even get a taste of it?

Well with all this ever-mounting, sometimes blatantly obvious, sometimes subtle pressure, i had to do something. I haven't dated any one ever. All I've had are awful "situationships", unrequited love and just a lot of idiots. Also you'd think being bi would increase your chances, considering your target demographic is now increasing. Welk guess what? No. It isn't! Mine was already small. It has somehow managed to shrink.

So i did what anyone on the brink of insanity would do in my situation. I started using online dating apps. I'm so socially inept. I kept my identity hidden as much as i can. I know people worry about getting catfished but like, what the hell! Can't we just have a normal conversation n then I'll reveal my fucking face?

But no. All these assholes with gym-bods and stupid greasy smiles and awfully stale pick up lines, with their "i wanna be deep with someone", "have a deep conversation with u" bullshit. Like you're as deep as a puddle, u actual waste of air!

And then, when finally one of them FINALLY connects with u, u are laughing and chatting n imagining fuckin fake scenarios of your future together in your head; full of gentle sweet nothings, n BAM! u find out they just wanna fuck around. Which is so, why would u not be straight up about that before this? And i will never understand the "casual hookup culture" thing people do, nowadays or at any time honestly. It's so lame n idiotic.

U wanna be intimate with people without actually caring for or respecting them? I understand if you're aro or ace or anything of the sort, but these straight ass men, have the audacity to say "our conversations need to be deep" n u find out they were actually talking about the depth of your fucking vagina!

I'd rather be a hermit than do this!

Rant over.

- @thinkdust 💌

[thebrandywine]

Hey ! That may be weird, but would you want to say a little more about “The New woman in the city during the 20th century and her intersection with a rise in immigration ” ? I never heard of it before (I’m not from America), but it’s seems quite interesting from the few things I just read (Wikipedia).

NOT WEIRD I LOVE THIS SHIT

This is going to be fast and dirty because I don't have any of my sources with me BUT the turn of the 20th century in America saw a LOT of social and cultural change in part due to the growing prominence of metropolitan areas/cities. Industrialization had firmly settled in and that meant factories and THAT meant more jobs which led to an increase in immigration (mostly because factory owners/foremen could pay immigrants less which meant a better cut for them). So you have the 'melting pot' of the American city starting to get a lot more complex culturally at the same time as a growing movement of young women wanting more independence-- they might want to live on their own or they might want to support themselves on their own without a husband or any number of things. A good way to do that is to move to the city and get a job!

This IMMEDIATELY led to a cultural panic because for the first time a large number of America's young women were on their own and away from the protection of their family. Who would make sure that they conformed to societal values? Who would keep them safe? This was especially exacerbated BECAUSE of immigration-- pure, young, virginal white women (America's pride, blah blah, other weird sexual and racist stuff) coming into contact with stupid, brutish, predatory immigrant men (NOTE: I AM REPEATING THINGS HERE lol). A MASSIVE moral panic ensued.

One of the most interesting things to come out of this, I think, is the resurgence of captivity narratives. Media is an incredible way to measure the values/fears of the populace at the time of publishing which is why you can follow the rise and fall of captivity narratives in American history and really easily find points of conflict. Captivity narratives have a long history in general but in American history they're mostly present at three points: colonization/westward expansion, the Civil War/Reconstruction era, and the turn of the 20th century.

I keep saying 'captivity narratives' but what I mean are stories about women (again, The Pure, Virginal White Woman who represents white America) being captured and sexually defiled by The Other, who represents a larger threat to American society and culture. During colonization/westward expansion, that Other was Native Americans. During the Civil War and Reconstruction (which immediately followed the Civil War), it was slaves/recently freed black men. And then, at the turn of the 20th century, it was immigrants!

This is a whole other ramble, but the 'immigrant' in question really, really depended. There was an idea of an 'acceptable' immigrant-- white (though 'white' had yet to be more specifically defined and the concept of it varied from person to person), well-spoken, deferential, and fully converted to the cult of the flag. The unacceptable immigrants were largely from Eastern Europe-- Italians, Polish people, some Russians, and, of course, Jewish people (because this is America-- who else is the most common scapegoat of all fucking time?). If you read captivity narratives from the turn of the century, you can ALWAYS tell who The Bad Guy is: he'll have a heavy accent, he'll be described as 'swarthy,' and the author will A L W A Y S make a point to mention his race.

A different ramble I could go on is the idea of the 'white slave trade' which is wholly connected to the moral panic and captivity narratives, but I've rambled enough lmao. If you'd like to read some captivity narratives (don't worry, the authors are long dead) or do more research about any of the stuff I mentioned above, here are some sources:

White on Arrival by Thomas A. Guglielmo [looks at the idea/evolution of whiteness for Chicago Italians at the turn of the century. secondary source]

Behind the Mask of Innocence: Sex, Violence, Prejudice, Crime: Films of Social Conscience in the Silent Era by Kevin Brownlow [SUPER interesting read about a bunch of the stuff i talked about above! secondary source]

The White Slave Trade and the Immigrants by Cordasco and Pitkin [what it says on the tin. secondary source]

The House of Bondage by Reginald Wright Kauffman [the captivity narrative of the time- very racist and extremely critical of/incorrect about sex work. primary source]

The Social Menace of the Orient by Jean Turner Zimmerman [VERY RACIST and I do notnotnot like the word 'Orient,' which is no longer used by anyone in scholarship that's hip with the times. primary source]

Tiger by Witter Bynner [short play about a white slave- notice the language used for the antagonist!! primary source]

Traffic in Souls or While New York Sleeps, dir. George Loane Tucker. can be watched here!

i will be very strong and limit myself to those sources-- thank you for asking so i could infodump about history. if you've read this far... sorry lmao

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

When I Was Your Age

Stephen Jay Morris

10/31/23

©Scientific Morality

I don’t mean to be sesquipedalian. However, I do relish the use of vulgar, four-letter words. That's my writing style. Don’t like it? Go somewhere else. Don’t let me waste your time. Okay? No! I aint no keyboard warrior, I am a pen and paper iconoclast. Okay? Okay! Now let’s go to the subject at hand.

We have tepid biases, then we have severe biases. Both are an anathema to the traditional liberals, or so-called “Woke.” You know? Racism, sexism, ablism, agism and many others. Then you have acceptable biases like “Generation gap.” Also, there are geographical biases, astrological biases, and other silly ones, like music criticism, sports bias, etc. Does this sound familiar: “People born under the sign of Pisces are assholes! Most of them live in Florida! What a shitty state that is! Not only do they have criminals, but they have lousy sports teams!” It all sounds hateful and hypercritical, but it is acceptable in society. Just like political bias: “It’s alright to call someone a communist, but you can’t call them a nigger!”

The paleo-conservatives are much too cowardly to use racial epithets, so they use innocuous, acceptable biases like “geographical bias” to cover up their racial hatred and disdain for their political adversaries. Instead of saying, “A city full of niggers that is run by a Democratic city council,” they say, “Chicago.”  Now that the conservative movement is being taken over by the White Nationalist movement, they’re even more at ease using racist terminology.

Today, I want to tackle the subject of the Generation Gap. Every race, creed, or color has had this problem. It is an innocuous bias that has been around since 399 B.C., the days of the ancient Greek philosophers. Quote: “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”― Socrates 399 B.C. End Quote. This didn’t just start with the Baby Boomers and their parents in the 60’s.

Every generation has its critics. Why do older people do this? Before I answer that question, let me point out that every individual has their own unique personality. Talking about generational issues, you tend to generalize. People who generalize are too stupid and indolent to elaborate. That is why most racists are stupid. So, why do most older people look down on the younger generation? Because they wish they were young enough to repair their misspent youth. Plus, they resent the better life their children have. Tag it “jealousy!”

Now, what I just said is a gross generalization. That may be true for some, but not all. There are parents who love their children, and those children reciprocate that love.  So, who is “anti-youth?” Mostly, this sentiment comes from the political Right in America! They want all males to be masculine warriors who will protect the ruling class, and all women to be birthing wives to increase the White population. Don’t believe me? Tough shit! Just read the history of any Fascist nation; it’s all the same.

The U.S. political Right wants every male in this country to be a self-reliant, rugged individual. Conservative news website and media company, “The Daily Wire,” makes lots of money from attacking the so-called Left. One of its commentators, Matt Walsh, wears a Fidel Castro beard and is a Millennial who attacks Generation Z. He cited a psychological study that found Gen Z-ers are suffering from anxiety and panic attacks. Matt, being the dumbass he is, did not sympathize with them, stating “they are just spoiled kids.” I get the feeling he never reads any pamphlets published by the Roman Catholic Church. He also stated that he has never experienced a panic attack, so therefore, there is no such thing. Any individual who has this mind set might suffer from psychopathological Narcissism. He has no ability to empathize. I pity his children and his wife.

I am a 69 year-old, Jewish male. Beginning at 11, I grew up having panic attacks. It was embarrassing and frequently occurred in public. These attacks came out of nowhere, not unlike an Epileptic seizure. I got them not because I had Liberal, hippie parents who were lenient with me; As I learned through psychotherapy many years later, it was because my neurons weren’t firing correctly and I had a bio-chemical imbalance in my brain. Matt Walsh thinks with his balls, not his brain.

A major upshot of this modern world is that religion is dying, and science is advancing. So, we must endure schmucks like Walsh until natural causes take hold.

Just remember, the world is getting better and better!

[twilightmalachite]

Altered - Heaven and Hell 10

Author: Akira

Characters: Eichi, Hiyori, Nagisa

Translator: Mika Enstars

"Nagisa-kun, your innocence is your cutest charm, but the only ones who should find happiness in and be loved for being cute are babies and myself, okay?"

Season: Autumn

Location: Yumenosaki Academy Student Council Room

⚠️ This is an import from a unproofed Twitter Livetweet!

Hiyori: Anyways, what’s important is, what will we be doing now, Eichi-kun?

Eichi: What do you mean?

Hiyori: We fine made our spectacular debut the other day.

I mean, obviously we made our debut quite a long time ago, but that performance was like our first full-scale one.

Eichi: Yeah, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Our first live was when the Five Eccentrics canceled on us last minute.

Hiyori: It’s really only been a couple months. Still, I had gotten fed up with how everyone was appreciated except for me.

I’m glad that situation’s finally been reversed and I’m getting some public attention at long last.

I’ve been able to make Valkyrie, whom I’ve never liked, finally bow down at my feet, too. Yep yup, this is exactly what I deserve.

Ahh, feels great.

Eichi: Unlike what your words may suggest, your eyes aren’t smiling, Hiyori-kun.

We’ve known each other for a long time. You can try to play the part, but you can’t fool or deceive me.

Hiyori: I can say the same thing right back at you.

You may be able to fool stupid students, but you can’t fool me, Eichi-kun.

We’re causing a revolution for a great cause. In order to restore the corrupt and rapidly decaying Yumenosaki back to good condition, we will defeat the root of all evil, the Five Eccentrics.

Do you think we’d really believe such childish fiction?

Nagisa: …Eh, was that not the case?

Hiyori: Nagisa-kun, your innocence is your cutest charm, but the only ones who should find happiness in and be loved for being cute are babies and myself, okay?

Unlike you, ordinary people are filthy. They think evil thoughts that’d make you feel sick. All without acknowledging they’re evil.

A perfect representation of such people is that man absentmindedly standing right there, Tenshouin Eichi.

Eichi: That’s horrible. Don’t put weird things into Nagisa-kun’s head like that, you know he’ll believe anything you say.

It is not my intention to make my companions dislike me, so I’ll at least defend myself. I’ve misled and exaggerated, but I never said anything untrue.

The Five Eccentrics are the root of all evil. It’s not right that only ones valued and get anything are those with inborn talent such as themselves.

Geniuses like them make up a very small minority, less than 1% of the human race. The remaining 99%—the ordinary or rather, inferior human beings—wander around at the bottom, getting nothing.

In this ultra-disparate society, this sort of thing is commonplace.

I vow to change that. I will change this situation, so that even that “ordinary 99%, below them” can taste the fruits of paradise that only the 1% of geniuses may taste.

Let’s lower the price of these fruits of happiness and turn it into a commodity of the world. Let’s mass produce it in factories, increase its distribution, and sell cheaply!

That way, everyone else will have tasted it.

Originally, this should have been done by the privileged 1% who had monopolized it all.

However, they’ve neglected to. Instead, as long as they have their peace and happiness, they’ve ignored the remaining 99%’s suffering.

That is their sin.

I will balance the books. Let’s redistribute the wealth and happiness by cutting those who’ve the monopoly out.

By defeating the Five Eccentrics, let’s take everything they’ve taken away from us back.

With fine being the majority, we’ll redistribute everything back to our “followers”—back into the world.

We’ll take from the pockets of the wealthy 1%, and give it to the less fortunate 99%.

That is what justice is, about bringing as much happiness as you can to the most amount of people possible.

Do you have any objections?

← prev | story directory | next →

[lunapwrites]

for the headcanon meme!

♥ - family headcanon for remus

∇ -. old age/aging headcanon for james :(

♒ - cooking/food headcanon for sirius

☼ - appearance headcanon for all three

Oh heck yeah

Family Headcanon - Remus - I have MANY THOUGHTS. But here's probably my favorite one that shows up in like... all my fics:

When Remus was bitten and Lyall explained what that meant for his future, Hope took it upon herself to teach Remus how to do for himself (figuring that if society was going to shun her sweet boy then society could hang; he wouldn't need them anyway.) So as a result, Remus like... knows how to make and mend his own clothes, and how to grow his own food, and even down to making his own household products. Hope went full crunchy on him and he loved her for it lol. (It also saved his life.) Lyall on the other hand stuck with the "you just need to be the best and then maybe they'll accept you" school of thought, which led to Remus spending most of his childhood struggling to meet ever-increasing expectations and chasing approval he was never going to get. So... trauma! Thanks dad!

Old Age/Aging Headcanon - James - OK so truthfully I've not given this one much thought because... I just can't make my brain see him past 21. I keep mentally replacing him with his son lol. BUT:

Ends up emanating Arthur Weasley energy. Just... delighted with everything that his children and grandchildren do. Goes grey surprisingly early (not as early as Remus, but still has a good bit of salt and pepper going on at his temples by the time he hits 40.) Absolutely ends up being the old guy who is giggling with childish delight every time he gets the opportunity to light fireworks -- especially if Remus and Sirius are there. Gets breakfast with them every Sunday at some dingy little cafe in London where they have been going since the 80's and all the staff know their names (and love them.) Just wholesome.

Cooking/Food Headcanon - Sirius - I do in fact have one for this!

Okay so kind of looping back to my post from ages ago about Jellybean Capitalism Sirius is an absolute slut for citrus fruits. He will never ever get scurvy because he is mainlining orange juice like it's his job. (He also likes regular fruits but like. Citrus is his JAM.) Eats orange marmalade on his toast, which Remus hates. Also has a baby mouth when it comes to spices, and will typically default to butter chicken when they get Indian. Can cook breakfast and simple dinners without burning them... usually.

Appearance Headcanon - Remus, James, Sirius - OH MAN MY FAVORITE.

For everyone's sanity I am restricting this to ONE blurb.

Remus and Sirius both have curls (Remus has looser, frizzier ones.) James has wavy hair but it's also stupid thick. Sirius has little moles. Remus has very faint freckles. James has the darkest hair of the three (actually black) and has hazel eyes (obvs.) Sirius' hair is more of a very dark brown, and his eyes are a grey color I can only describe as "vaguely unsettling." Remus is basically if beige gained sentience and put on a ratty sweater; light brown hair that's almost dirty blond, but isn't, and hazel eyes that are a different/lighter shade than James. Just... beige. They're all tall, but Remus has the other two edged out by like. 2 inches. Not obvious though bc his posture is trash.

These were fun, thank you! :)

From this ask meme if anyone is interested.

[the-firebird69]

Included in this package that is just for you are armies coming out within society to pull you in and we are part of those armies we don't want to be grabbed by them and we do need our demons because you people are rather useless and that's an idea of some people and they are going to proceed with it and if we get captured it will be most likely the Mac proper that prevail and people don't want to see it at all due to past sins so in the movie Joe Black he has initialized this program otherwise he would never be able to stand near that guy and it is a fact. The temple is increasing and we do need time and we need them up keeping in mind that they raise the others this will be a focal point of the higher-ups of the Mac proper and the foreign s who already frequent Italy very often and undercover they are investigating these top level demons because it is a serious threat to them and they are going to do so continuously in Italy bja heard about it and said these people are going to raise those things to protect themselves and we need in and we need to know about it and you put it that way and he also said nobody is going to protect us but these guys will be busy protecting themselves or just losing so we need to make sure that they at least say independent they stay independent for now and he ran to work and Trump started to follow and Trump returned to grab the bikes and he went in grabbed the bikes and took off and is having other people fix them and it's true and yeah it might be BG the one who put them together and our son says a very nice bikes and boy did they get ruined and I'm angry that they're ruined. And there's some laughter because he's saying and now I laid a rest and he's slamming them down and people think it's a little bit funny it's not really he's upset and we know that you guys were trying to do things but boy that got her a little sweltering and now it's just completely sweltering and going nowhere so we are getting ready we're going to have to meet this threat now and we're going in I was still raising demons mind you but this is a major effort that has to occur to deter what's happening from growing out of control we're moving out right now and we have to we do see it it's very huge and it's happening right now there's a lot of people involved it's a huge day and it's getting bigger and bigger every minute

**as a recap we are going to raise demons as we're in the minority and to protect ourselves and ASAP and armies of them and it will begin in Italy

Thor Freya

Olympus

We do understand what's going on and we are getting ready for a full-blown war to protect ourselves. The characters and the people in these movies are huge this is a gigantic effort it's going to occur and it will be massive bja and other warlock and miscellaneous are seeing are there we break out of the Cities or no one's going to help us. They do not look like pseudo Empire and the armies are big vast really and they're too large to be them yeah that's what people think but we think that it is premature for raising the demons but we are outlining the plan and that soon enough these will see the logic to it they are being invaded by force and with great numbers and are being held from above by ships and including Tommy f

Hera

We can't really continue with this a****** above us constantly telling us what to do and I do mean it. Although others die and our friend here gets there stuff tell me if does too and it looks like he might get his stuff they're hunting together for instance and he broke his back where is Dan lost his head as he usually does and yeah this guy breaks his back and he takes it out on other people it's kind of our style

Mac daddy

We do have to listen to it yeah it's terrible and our friend is saying some stuff and it's probably true we're going to be in trouble too but we we kind of have to do this and he knows there's no way out of it and it's making us angry that you're so stupid that you continue in this vein at this point we don't know what to do we are according you off it's kind of like committed behavior we are committed to what we're doing because you more like as it were are totally committed to taking her stuff then we regret to inform you your decision was wrong and a lot of you are detecting that. It's not helping you but that you are at least to texting that you have probably made a massive error in judgment and it's going to cost you probably everything we are proceeding with our plan because we don't have another one your truly massively threats that are almost unending okay you are attacking us relentlessly and we don't have anything to stop you with and nothing to look forward to except getting hurt by a pile of idiots who are extremely greedy and we don't want that and we can't take it and we certainly are not going to take it from you idiots who started this stupid mess and we have to get out of it and it is happening right now and it will not stop until you stop and you said you're stopping and you don't and we are not going to put up with these attacks of yours we do not have the patience for it either right now you're under scrutiny your actions are being observed and what you're doing here to our friend is being recorded and it's not like right now we see what you're doing so pretty soon you're going to feel a pinch from it and then it's going to be over your lives and everything that you've ever done will be of course meaningless because of what you have chosen to do here and elsewhere and it has affected you adversely you don't want to get into it but there's a lot of violations that you have done and including trying to harm us all the time as if we're nobody and we're not nobody so enjoy what you have left of life

Stan

Olympus

[indiana-b0nes]

day 29 & 30!!

day 29: i think beauty can mean anything. beauty is a social construct and i think it’s stupid. everybody can be beautiful, and it’s dumb that society tells people that they can’t.

day 30: 10 facts about me??

1. my safe f00ds are oatmeal, yogurt, tuna, konjac noodles, salad, rice cakes, seaweed, fruit & veg.

2. i love music??? i really enjoy like. most music & u will never see me without my headphones

3. i’ve had a fucked up relationship with f00d since i was a kid, but it didn’t get properly serious until i was like. 11 or 12?? maybe 13?? when i started “£@t1ng h€@lthy” and w0rk1ng 0ut a lot. and being jealous of how sk1nny my best friend was. she probably had an €d also because her period stopped ‘because of how much she was 3x£rc1s1ng’ and she said that it was normal for people in sports and it so could be, but that is totally also a textbook sign of st@rv@t10n so idk dude.

4. i love books!!! neil gaiman is probably my favourite author ever and his books were probably the only thing that got me through 10th grade. i used to be the type of person you would never see without a book in hand but i’ve been really busy lately and haven’t found anything good :(

5. my family is i think on the verge of discovering that i have an 3d. my grandmother (who had 4n0r€x1@ in her 20s) tried to buy me f00d & when i refused her offer, told me she didn’t want me “withering away” & made me take the oranges she had with her. (i’m terrified)

6. i’m in alt school?? it’s a really neat program and most of the people there are really chill. it’s weird cuz i used to be in like. a mainstream high school and this one only has like?? 40-50 students i think?? it’s really small

7. i also have a history with b1ng€ 3@t1ng!! my parents were very strict about sugar when i was a kid, and they always hid the cookies and ‘treats’ and i would always find them and like. climb on top of our fridge and like. £@t half a pack of mint oreos. or €@t seven chocolate dipped granola bars and then hide the wrapper in the couch. one time when i was like 3 or 4, i hid under our couch with a box of after eights from christmas and @t3 like?? pretty much the whole thing i think??

8. i have a pretty big friend group & they’re all really awesome and i would probably kill & die for every single one of them but especially my gf <3 also like??? my friends are cool???? like we’re all cool in the loser way but like. in the hot gay loser way yk?? like one of the newest additions to our group is basically the girl version of jesse pinkman but she’s also a 90’s dad rock nerd. my gf is a 60s/beatles nerd and loves nic cage & horror movies. like. we’re weird losers but in a cool way

9. this is soo gonna be more of a disclaimer than a fact about me but like. whatever. i started smoking/vaping bc i heard it was an @pp3t1t£ svppr€ss@nt and i figured it would make it easier to st@rv£. it doesn’t guys. it just increases your risk of lung diseases don’t smoke. the @pp£t1t3 svpr€ss1ng effect does not last that long, and it’s a lot of trouble to go through for not feeling as hvngry for like. two minutes. don’t do it guys

10. idk what else there is to say?? i’m a huge nerd, i love horror movies, i have horrible adhd & become super obsessive because of that sometimes, i’m a people pleaser, i hate my therapist, i LOVED fleabag, i get a different answer everytime i take the myers briggs personality test, but i know that i’m an extrovert and perceiving, idk???

stats!!

height: 5’6 1/2 ish???

hw: 170ish??

lw: 125 i think?

cw: 133.8

next gw: 130

ugw: 100

bmi: 21.3

[eleonordiza]

Why are most people stressed nowadays?

1) SOCIAL MEDIA-

Due to social media the inferiority complex among people is increased by multiple times specially in teenager the stupid ongoing trends like looking muscular curvy bodies, or trying to fit in particular category or seeing others happy life and comparing it with their theirs creates many issues like body image issue, inferiority complex, not being satisfied by your own life etc and all these eventually creates stress image .

2) HIGH COMPETITION -

Their is a very high competition among people nowadays everywhere, everyone want to became better than other but due to high population and low opportunities its becoming very very toxic like for a seat in college, students have to complete for few thousand seats with lakhs of students.

3) SHOWOFF CULTURE -

People now days do things to please others rather than for themselves which make them feel trapped in the cycle of pleasing others they became very conscious of what others think of them.

4) VIRTUAL WORLD-

Nowadays we do things which are supposed to in real virtually ,we do virtual meetings with friends virtual celebration even some people have virtual jobs.

We experience happiness virtually most of the things are virtual now a days and this virtual thing is major cause of stress because they aren't, u can't experience everything virtually, real connections are missing and eventual person feel empty and stressed.

5) LACK OF OPPORTUNITIES

It's s a big problem society today their are very few opportunities and due to high competition and corruption, due to this the deserving ones are also left behind and end frustrated and stressed.

All in all, you can overcome depression and anxiety by looking beyond your current circumstances. You are bigger than your past. There is hope if you keep believing that no matter what you have lost in the past, there is so much to acquire still with your future.

Stay blessed.

[heavenlymusickcorporation]

It's this pair of articles: The Great Drug Delusion and The Drug Panic, written for The English Review in June-July 1922 by someone claiming to be a "London Physician" :

I'm not sure how the editors of the Luminist Archives website even determined that this is Crowley, yet it's in their Crowley selection nevertheless.

(To be fair, look at the writing style. It's obviously him. He just can't resist mentioning "the divine prerogative of man to do what he wills, and, when he wills, to stop doing." The reference in third-person to a "member of the Himalayan Expedition of 1902" – likely himself – is also rather cheeky.)

Apparently his magic(k)al activities included engaging in some pre-Internet media subterfuge from time to time.

Anyway, a few selections:

But prohibition, ineffective as it is, has intensified the demand for drugs; and I am therefore ready to believe that war-time restrictions on the sale of liquor produced a parallel result in England. I note in passing that the prohibition of absinthe in France has resulted in the manufacture of substitutes, some of which will actually eat their way through a marble table.

Crowley Sorry, I mean our "London Physician" actually making some pretty good points here.

There has been so much delirious nonsense written about drugs that sane men may well despair of seeing the light. But it ought to be obvious that if England reverted to pre-war conditions, when any responsible person (by signing his name in a book) could buy drugs at a fair profit on cost price, cocaine (say) at 16's" and heroin at 20's" the bottle of 10 grammes — instead of as many pounds — the whole underground traffic would disappear like a bad dream.

From the second article:

We are all laudably busy in “cleaning up” Sin in its hydra-headed and Protean forms. Very good: we hear that a woman abuses morphine, or a man goes mad and destroys his family with an axe. We then argue that as the morphine and the axe can injure society, it must be made as difficult as possible for anyone to buy these engines of atrocity. No! We do not do so in the case of the axe, because it is obvious to everybody that there is a large class of very poor men whose livelihood would be taken away if they could not get axes. Then why does not the same argument apply in the case of morphine? Because the public is ignorant of the existence of “a large class of very poor men” who would die or go insane if morphine were withheld from them.

He describes a hypothetical man suffering from a health condition which he manages using opioids:

Now what is the effect of the Dangerous Drugs Act on him — and he is only one of probably 100,000 similar cases in these islands? Only this — that he must trudge round constantly to his doctor to obtain a new prescription: this means time and money which he can ill afford. Also, it might mean danger to his life, if he happened to forget his supply of the drug, and were seized with an attack; for he could hardly explain — in the violence of the paroxysm — to a chance-summoned doctor that heroin, and heroin alone, would relieve him.

Later on, in the second article (Panic), he goes on a bit of a disturbing tangent about how "The whole essence of Evolution is to let the best man win; yet our recent theory seems to be that the best man, the 'sport,' is necessarily a danger to society." He also, in the first article (Delusion), brings up the possibility of "a month or two" of increased overdose deaths, should prohibitions be lifted, and declares that "we should not miss a few score wasters too stupid to know when to stop."

Yeah. Some of his takes have not aged well, to put it lightly.

It's pretty interesting, though, to see a guy in 1922 make observations about his era's War on Drugs that ring remarkably true today, while also noting that his proposed solutions virtually scoff at the idea of harm reduction.

Apropos of the previous post I was reading this thinkpiece Crowley wrote about the dangerous drugs act and for the most part he seemed to be making some pretty good points (a lot of the article felt surprisingly relevant to the current-day War on Drugs!) but then towards the end he went on this weird anti-democratic social darwinist tangent and I was starkly reminded that "oh yeah, this was written by a weird bigoted British dude in like 1922."

[mostlysignssomeportents]

California's antitrust case against Amazon

California’s antitrust case against Amazon feels anachronistic, like a witchcraft charge, or some other ancient crime that we no longer prosecute. It’s true, antitrust spent 40 year in a coma! The Amazon case neatly illustrates how it was sedated, and why it finally roused.

Back in the Reagan years, antitrust underwent a profound change. For 90 years, America’s trustbusters had pursued monopolists under the theory of “harmful dominance” — the idea that when companies get big enough, they can inflict harms on workers, communities, customers and the political process. They become “too big to fail” and “too big to jail.”

Senator John Sherman said it well, when campaigning for his landmark 1890 Sherman Act, America’s first comprehensive antitrust law: “If we will not endure a King as a political power we should not endure a King over the production, transportation, and sale of the necessaries of life.”

https://marker.medium.com/we-should-not-endure-a-king-dfef34628153

For American competition regulators, the problem with big companies was that they usurped the power of democratically accountable law. The executives who commanded these firms became “autocrat[s] of trade with power to prevent competition and to fix the price of any commodity.”

But for the business lobby, the ability to be an autocrat — to impose your will on your workers and suppliers and customers without interference by elected lawmakers or the regulators who report to them — was a feature, not a bug. The power of a monopolist to take away others’ freedom to trade, work and live as they choose was essential to “liberty.” That’s why, as self-proclaimed “libertarian” Peter Thiel has it, “Competition is for losers.”

Under Reagan, the business lobby got its way. Their champion was Robert Bork, Richard Nixon’s disgraced solicitor general, whose book, “The Antitrust Paradox,” was a kind of gnostic reading of US antitrust law, insisting that the lawmakers who voted for the Sherman Act and its successors actually liked monopoly:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down

These lawmakers, Bork said, viewed monopolies as beneficial, thanks to the efficiencies they realized by not having to engage in wasteful competition. The FTC, DoJ and the courts had been misapplying antitrust through its history. The only time the state should act against monopolies is when they use their market power to raise prices.

This “consumer welfare” theory of antitrust was the poison dart that plunged trustbusting into a 40-year coma. Bork and his cronies at the University of Chicago School of Economics — the cradle of neoliberalism — set up a sweet side-hustle, building complex mathematical models that only they understood.

These models were used to prove that every monopoly was untouchable under consumer welfare enforcement standards — even if a company bought all its competitors and then increased prices 1,000% (as Luxottica-Essilor did for eyeglasses, after buying nearly every eyeglass brand, retailer, insurer and lens-maker), it was still untouchable.

The Bork models could “prove” that these price-hikes were the result of “exogenous” factors — increasing wage bills, oil shocks, or just because the moon was in Venus. Price-gouging could be blamed on anything except corporate greed.

This highly technical change in antitrust enforcement is one of the most consequential, worst-understood shifts in our society. Today’s headline inflation numbers rarely mention the monopoly CEOs who gleefully notify their shareholders that they’ve been able to raise prices far in excess of their costs, simply because they lack meaningful competition:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/02/its-the-economy-stupid/#overinflated

It was obvious from the start that “consumer welfare” was a scam, a ruse designed to let monopolies flourish and to install “autocrats of trade” on their thrones. Despite its ideological bankruptcy, “consumer welfare” was able to repel its critics for decades, because it had deep-pocketed backers — no different from tobacco-cancer denial or climate denial.

But, as with cancer and climate denial, inaction on antitrust created mounting harms that made it increasingly obvious that the story was a lie. In 2017, we reached a turning point when a third-year law student published “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” in Yale Law Journal, which demolished Bork’s arguments so comprehensively that today, that former law student is the chair of the FTC: Lina Khan.

Khan’s leadership — and that of her colleagues, Robert Kanter at the DoJ and Tim Wu in the White House — have been nothing short of inspirational, an object lesson in the prospect that “personnel are policy.” But they are not alone — they are part of a raging current sweeping through state governments and legislatures all over the world, from the EU to China.

And state houses, too. Which brings me back to California’s antitrust case against Amazon. Amazon exerts serious harmful dominance, of course — you can’t have missed the way that its conduct erodes local tax bases, immiserates workers, inflicts climate harms, wrecks local businesses and independent firms that rely on its platform.

But none of that is in the California case against Amazon. Rather, the case focuses on a narrow, and ingenious “consumer welfare” theory of how Amazon has raised prices — the one thing that consumer welfare claims to defend us from:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62908412

Amazon is a classic “chokepoint capitalism” business. The company’s “Prime” program and other lock-in tactics were deliberately and explicitly designed to ensure that the majority of customers for the majority of goods turn to Amazon first. It worked:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/01/you-are-here/#prime-facie

That means that any business that wants to sell anything had better offer those goods on Amazon, or forfeit a large portion of its market — perhaps the majority. When large firms like Birkenstocks held out and refused to sell on Amazon, the company tacitly encouraged counterfeiters to sell substitute goods to customers searching on its site:

https://www.geekwire.com/2016/birkenstock-announces-it-will-leave-amazon/

The result is that nearly every firm was corralled into Amazon’s walled garden, and as those firms disappeared behind Amazon’s walls, more customers bought into Prime and found themselves locked into Amazon’s walled garden, too. Amazon is quite explicit about this strategy, which they call “the flywheel”:

https://twitter.com/rgibli/status/1561761732108107777

That meant that instead of competing in the market, these Amazon suppliers competed on Amazon. Amazon created a $31b/year “ad” business mainly made up of payola that Amazon vendors spend to rise to the top of the Amazon listings:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/27/not-an-ad/#shakedowns

Even after spending $31b, independent merchants find themselves unable to make a go of it on Amazon’s platform. Desperate, they sell out to “gators” — aggregators who professionalized the business of navigating Amazon’s Byzantine rules and scams, spawning a multi-billion-dollar, socially useless industry:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/10/monopoly-begets-monopoly/#gator-ade

But no matter how much you spend on Amazon “ads,” and no matter how skilled you are at avoiding Amazon’s other traps, you will struggle to top the listings unless you purchase a slew of Amazon “services” — most notably, “fulfillment by Amazon” and Amazon Prime Fulfillment.

All told, a successful Amazon seller is likely handing over 35–45% of the purchase price to Amazon in fees and commissions. That vastly exceeds the profit margin on many goods, which presents merchants with a stark choice: lose money on every sale, or charge more for everything sold on Amazon.

No business can survive for long if it loses money on every sale (at least, not without the backing of the Saudi royals — looking at you, Uber). So Amazon sellers hike prices, just to cover the vig extracted by Amazon itself.

You might be thinking that this is an opportunity for Amazon’s rivals: if your local retailer (or even Walmart) opted not to charge all those fees, then the same merchants could offer the same products on their shelves at a 35–45% discount and still make the same amount of money. As habituated as we are to Amazon, as much as Prime means we turn to it first, a 45% discount would surely tempt some of us to shop elsewhere.

But Amazon’s thought of that too, which is why they make every merchant that sells through their platform sign a “most favored nation” guarantee that they will not charge less for their products anywhere else — which means that the price is the same everywhere.

And that’s the heart of the California antitrust case against Amazon: Amazon’s market dominance makes it impossible to survive without offering your products on Amazon; to succeed there, you must turn over 35–45% of your gross to Amazon. That leads to higher prices on Amazon, and, thanks to the most favored nation deal, it pushes those same higher prices to every other retailer.

Amazon, in other words, is undermining “consumer welfare” by forcing up prices — not just on Amazon, but everywhere.

This is sleazy as hell of course, but, as noted, it is just one of Amazon’s myriad of sins, and far from the worst one. California AG Rob Bonta has managed to thread the microscopic eye of Robert Bork’s needle — but like busting Capone for tax fraud, the need to pursue this strategy reveals the poverty of our other enforcement regimes.

“Consumer welfare” was always a lie and a sham. The harms inflicted by chokepoint capitalists — to workers, suppliers, and our politics and regulation — are not limited to making us worse off as “consumers.” No one is a mere “consumer” — a kind of ambulatory wallet. We are also workers, citizens, and residents. Even when monopolies make our prices go down, they also make our wages stagnate, lowering our overall purchasing power.

It’s heartening to see California take on one nodule of the Amazon cancer, but that can only be the start. Even if Amazon is forced to stop price-gouging us, it will still inflict innumerable harms. This needs to be seen as the first step in taming monopolies — not as an end in itself.

[Image ID: The flag of California. It has been altered so that the bear is rearing on its hind legs, and its forelegs are crushing an Amazon lower-case 'a' logo. The 'smile' beneath the Amazon logo has been inverted into a frown. Atop the California bear stands a trustbuster-era editorial cartoon illustration of Roosevelt, swinging his 'big stick.' From the star in the California flag emanates a read beam-weapon that is bathing the Amazon 'a' with lethal rays. The 'a' is wreathed in flames.]

[unpopularfanopinion]

I never understood you fiction doesn't effect reality people because it's so easy to prove it does. Did that movie make you feel something? Fiction effected reality. You guys say fiction doesn't effect reality but what you really mean is fiction doesn't effect reality if it's about ships.

You aren't delusional enough to think whitewashing characters isn't harmful. You aren't delusional enough to think propaganda doesn't exist. You aren't delusional enough to say pedophiles don't fantasize before they do their first crime. You aren't delusional enough to say racist stereotypes don't hurt people if it's in fiction.

You say fiction doesn't effect reality. What you mean is fictional ships don't effect reality. But, just like all the other examples I threw out, it really does.

Are you familiar with the conception of psychological projection? it's when you project your own beliefs onto others and assume they think the same way you do. You might want to look into that and think about it.

Because believe me we notice that you and the rest of the anti-shippers only seems to screech and scream about "fiction affecting reality" when it's about ships. Specifically when it's about ships you don't like for whatever reason(mostly because you prefer a different one) At which point you will make up any excuse to say a ship is problematic and claim it's normalizing something when it has no such power to do so.

And for the record when we say fiction doesn't affect reality we mean it doesn't affect reality the way you claim it does. Fiction by itself does not have the power to change your morals. Watching a gangster movie, or heist flick won't lead you to commit crime. Watching a slasher or playing violent video games won't send you on a murderous rampage. Reading about an unhealthy relationship won't lead you into an unhealthy relationship. People have made claims about fiction leading to a decline in society multiple times in the past. And they have always been wrong.

From Dr Wertham and his claims that comic books were responsible for an increase in Juvenile delinquency in the the 1950's

(and if you'll note, that even after comic were censored Juvenile delinquency didn't diminish until starting in the 1980's and 1990's when there was a decrease in crime over all)

And then of course in the 1990's everyone got up in arms claiming that violent video games caused violence and they trot that line out after every school or mass shooting. To desperately try to deflect from systemic and societal issues and pin everything on a scapegoat

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-11-08/no-evidence-violent-video-games-lead-to-real-violence-study

But again it's a lie.

So maybe you should try not continuing to lie and claim "fiction effects reality" about XYZ ship somehow leading to or causing people to fall into abusive relationships, or suddenly make people think rape and incest in real life are okay.

It's a lie, and you know it's a lie. You're just hoping people are stupid enough to fall for it

[argumate]

I'm still (still!) trying to figure out the Chinese Debt Problem in terms I can understand and this is what I've got so far:

between 1980 and 2010 the Chinese economy grew like crazy thanks to huge amounts of infrastructure investment.

this makes sense because before 1980 it didn't have any infrastructure to speak of (thank you warlords, Japanese, civil war, and Mao) so there was a ton of potential to scale up.

how it worked was very simple: the government(s) (central and local) financially repressed the people (made them work their ass off for low wages) and subsidised export businesses (with favourable exchange rates) while building roads, railways, docks, airports, dams, power stations, and all the other stuff you need to be the industrial centre of the world.

simultaneously the country urbanised at a furious pace, with local governments making huge amounts of money selling land to property developers who tiled it with apartment blocks for everyone to move into and also speculate on as the prices kept going up (and up, and up) and there wasn't much else (legal) available to invest in (see financial repression).

oh and they get rid of all the Cultural Revolution era stuff and let smart kids go to university again.

productivity soars! and the entire world outsources its manufacturing to China, leading to the fastest and most complete technology transfer / upskilling process in world history.

you might think all the financial repression and hard work would make people mad, but the economy is growing so fast they're all getting better off in absolute terms, so they're cool with it (after the initial adjustment pains are dealt with in 1989).

"the" debt level (speaking loosely) is going up quickly as the government(s), banks, state owned enterprises, and private companies are all borrowing like mad (from each other, and the people) to fund this breakneck expansion, but it's driving productivity up so quickly that the economy is growing faster than the debt, making it completely manageable and not a problem at all.

by 2010 this program stops working: infrastructure has reached capacity and you can't boost productivity by building more highways and railways, there are more university graduates than there are jobs, everyone who matters already has two apartments and the people who don't can't afford one because they're so expensive, and flooding the world with cheap subsidised goods is pushing other countries into debt and unemployment and starting trade wars.

now the debt is still rising quickly but the economy isn't keeping pace any more, which means the interest payments are going to take up an increasing fraction of future budgets, state owned enterprises are going to have to cut back and fire people, private businesses are going to go broke, and things rapidly get worse from there.

China needs to change tack in order to keep growing its economy instead of drowning, but how? there are three options:

mass unemployment! stop subsidising export industries, stop madly building highways and apartments no one needs or can afford, and let the chips fall where they may! obviously this is completely out of the question as it would destroy the legitimacy of party rule.

hyperinflation! if you want to keep buying stuff that doesn't pay off, just keep printing more money, eventually it won't be worth anything any more but that's somebody else's problem! obviously this is also completely out of the question, nobody voluntarily destroys their economy like this on purpose, this is what happens if everything else fails.

rebalance the economy towards consumption! this is the official government policy and coincidentally the only option that actually makes sense: pay people more, ease off on the financial repression, stop building stupid stuff, let domestic consumption drive economic growth instead of the export market, and achieve a moderately prosperous society! sadly it's politically impossible to pull off but it's a nice idea.

just keep trudging on with the status quo => nationalisation! if debt keeps rising then private businesses who are constrained by the need to be profitable will exit the market (witness Evergrande, Sunac, etc.) and state owned enterprises that are not so constrained will take over an ever increasing share of the (increasingly planned) economy, with hilariously painful results.