#to be this way.

[mejomonster]

There's a podcast I found on youtube called Behind the Bastards that goes into the history of awful people in history. Listened to the Thomas Jefferson episodes recently and. Wow rich people always have been shit (as a group)

Jefferson admired the roman 'farmers' who were land owners who had slaves work their land. He and his peers were virginia landowners who also had slaves farm for them. The ideal he read about and admired were "hard working self sufficient farmers" but this image is not of a man hunting and farming himself or with his family, but a man living in comfort with slaves to do the work and provide the comfort.

Now the big trend among conservatives is tradwifes and the image men are sold about it - a woman cleaning their home, farming for them, providing for them and obeying them. Which on the small scale is to like appease poor men and poor women - to give poor men this illusion that they could have a stay at home wife and afford for her to not work eventually (and also serve him), to give poor women (that they could afford to not work for money one day and serve a man who loves them for being the 'right' kind of woman). The people who are actually achieving this lifestyle are rich men (and women who end up working since... if you're an influencer that's your job, so it's all an illusion since the lifestyle could not be achieved without money coming in).

It's just a symptom of a bigger pattern. Conservative circles push this lifestyle as idealized to the masses (a man being served by someone for free, able to control them absolutely). If the masses aspire to that, hope for that, then the masses will continue to think they'll be billionaires one day who WILL have that and DESERVE to have that. And instead of fighting the billionaires, they'll think that is the goal to be admired as a sign of success.

Meanwhile our whole world, our current world, is at the mercy of some very very rich fucks. Who are attempting to sap what wealth everyone else has, and take it for themselves. These billionaires live in comfort! Far more comfort than slave owners of centuries past! These billionaires have so much money, they can buy any service they want, land, websites, politicians. And yet its never 'enough' money to these bastards. They need to buy more property to rent to the masses, and drive rent prices up by using housing as assets. They need healthcare gutted because god forbid the masses pay less for healthcare - they SHOULD pay 100,0000 to live after an accident! God forbid the masses own property, and therefore have a little wealth and security for their family - if they're less housing stable, they'll quit shitty jobs less. You can abuse them more! God forbid the majority of humans have food, water, shelter, healthcare. Got to raise the price of all groceries, because you can! Because you need to get ALL the money the masses manage to make, and funnel it to yourself. Billionaires are just like those illusions of "self sufficient farmers" who own slaves and rely on slaves to both provide necessities and luxuries.

Billionaires really spew the bullshit they're self sufficient, then don't pay their employees living wages. Billionaires have nothing to offer without the efforts of their employees, and the money those employees earned for them (or the rent they charged etc). They certainly aren't self sufficient, they're also not a single benefit to society. They dream of a world where everyone serves them, provides for them, and gives them always MORE. In many ways the world probably already is this, all of us buy something that eventually contributes to a billionaire, or work for one (or for a company that serves one), or pay taxes to a government that coddles a billionaire, buy groceries. But billionaires always want MORE. More more more. They're destructive in their existence. In what they choose to do, which is take from others to give themselves more, to give themselves SO much they can't even use it all. They'd still be rich enough to buy a politician off, to buy an island or a website, if they paid their employees a living wage and charged reasonable prices. Once you have enough money you simply cannot spend it all in your lifetime, in your grandchildrens lifetimes, even if you buy absolutely everything you ever want. They don't have to seek to take from others endlessly, to continue existing with the lifestyle they do. But they still seek to take more and more and more. In the process they hurt most people, and hurt the world we live in as a whole. And they don't care, even though it would not hurt them at all and would not take a single tangible benefit they receive, to stop being Such destructive presences in the world.

[stoney-baloney-with-cheese]

Do not let them erase this. Do not let them tell you he meant "my heart goes out for you."

This man is the grandson of a Canadian Nazi sympathizer who moved to South Africa BECAUSE he thought the apartheid was just the coolest.

He has a gaggle of kids specifically because he believes his genes are superior and need to be spread to improve humanity.

He has thrown his support behind the neonazi party in Germany and the far right party in the UK, not to mention how far he's wormed up the ass of the Republican party.

He threw two sieg heil salutes back to back at the inauguration of the president of the United States and is trying to scrub the evidence off the internet.

Elon Reeve Musk is a fucking Nazi.

[aromantic-goldfishdeactivated202]

I find it so funny, in light of TikTok’s imminent American demise, that even now they aren’t considering moving to tumblr. The last two social media refugee crises (Twitter -> X and whatever happened with Reddit) prompted a wave of wide-eyed new baffled tumblr users to flood this app and yet last I heard all of the tiktokers are flooding en-masse a Chinese social media app. That is entirely in Mandarin. Instead of moving to tumblr.

[skarsgards-bill]

Andrew Garfield talks to Elmo about grief and the passing of his mother

[jessepinwheel]

I love it when people use "shrimp" to mean "beyond the human range". like "shrimp colors" but applied to other things. "shrimp emotions" "shrimp sounds" "shrimp morality", as if shrimp are living some kind of transcendent existence that humans can never comprehend

[rioblitzle]

working retail

[arynneva]

wait do people read first person stories and think they're the ones in the story???

Saw people talking about not liking first person, which is fair, but their reasoning was like "I would not do that" and I don't understand that mindset.

First person stories are still about a character. A character making their own decisions. First person isn't about you???? At least I thought it wasn't. What am I missing? I've always seen first person as just a more in-depth look into a character's mind and stricter POV. Not as a reader stand-in.

[epoxyconfetti]

[beeabart]

happy new years everyone

(live jayce reaction:)

[fairycosmos]

recognising your parent's mannerisms in yourself and physically feeling psychic damage occur

[beholdthemem]

My fellow bitches under 5'5. Whatever the money, do not take a job working at a middle school. A fellow adult tried to put me in detention last month and would NOT give up until I showed her my badge proving Yes, The School Hired Me To Work Here. It's not meant for people our height.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

that article going around abt firefox's new ad program is annoying bc it's phrased as though "mozilla has finally TURNED on its people and is SELLING YOU OUT for cold hard cash!!" when. that's not what's happening. it is specifically being implemented to discourage tracking behavior, and literally all the data they are giving to advertisers is aggregate and anonymized, which is like, the opposite of what that post wants you to worry about, lol

[great-and-small]

My grandfather and my godfather (a beloved neighbor and dear family friend) had a long standing bet- for one dollar- about who would die first. Both of them being slightly pessimistic (in the funny way), they both insisted that they themselves would be the first to die. Any time my grandfather had a health scare, he’d gleefully call up my godfather to boast that he’d be passing “any day now” and he was sure to win the bet. It was a big family joke and they were always amiably sparring and comparing notes about who was in worse shape, medically speaking.

When my grandfather was in hospice care dying of liver cancer, my godfather was quite ill also. It took him great effort to make the journey to see his dying friend. As he came into the room, supported by a family member, he shuffled to my grandpa’s bedside and silently handed him a dollar bill. He was ceding his loss of the bet, as they both knew who was going first. My grandpa had been in quite bad shape for a while and was no longer able to speak but let me tell you he snatched that dollar with unexpected strength and literally laughed aloud. He knew exactly what the gesture meant and he couldn’t help but find the humor within the grief. It was the last time any of us heard my grandpa laugh, as he passed shortly after.

When I talk about my appreciation for “dark humor” I’m not so much thinking about edgy jokes, but rather the human instinct to somehow, impossibly, both find and appreciate the absurdity that is so often folded into the profound grief of life and death. When I tell this story I think it kind of perturbs people sometimes, but it’s honestly one of my favorite memories about two men I really deeply admired. I could never hope for anything more than for my loved ones to remember me laughing until the very end, and taking joy in a little joke as one of my final acts.

[captainjonnitkessler]

>Join a union

>Hear people constantly complaining that the current union leadership is super corrupt, it's all just the same ten guys making all the decisions in secret and nobody else in the union ever gets to know what's going on

>Go to the monthly union meetings that are completely open to all 1200 union members

>The only attendees are the same ten guys every month, giving detailed reports about everything that's going on

[blabberoo]

;]