tzikeh

[tzikeh]

Fuck that anon in particular. I hope everything goes badly for them every day.

Maybe if people updated more we wouldn't turn to ai

You’re a pathetic, impatient loser. Fanfic writers owe you nothing, and their writing is their own, not yours to do with as you choose, you entitled brat.

[tzikeh]

Didn't you learn that in your oh no I see the problem here

Are you shittenating me? Higher education used to be FREE?????

[tzikeh]

Back in 2008, I decided to quit the workforce and go to grad school for education. I was taking a required Gen Ed (which ultimately got scrapped from the requirements for someone who already held a degree, so ultimately a waste of my time and money) which put me in a classroom with a bunch of undergrads. I think it was a U.S. Government or Civics class. We were talking about gay rights (this was seven years before gay marriage was legal in the whole U.S. - at that point only Massachusetts and Connecticut had legal gay marriage), and a young woman, likely 19 or 20 at the time, said, and I quote:

"What about my right to not be uncomfortable?"

And the other (young) students in the room were nodding.

And the professor - simply moved on to the next topic. He did not take 30 seconds to explain to the class that that is not a right.

I tried to bring up the fact of that, you know, not being a right that anyone has, but he interrupted me to plow on about whatever bullshit he was spewing about the threat Obama posed to the country were he to win the election. When I tried a second time, he interrupted me again and said "We're done with that topic now."

I went directly to the department head, and then the dean, and finally to the president of the university. Same answer from each one of them - the professor runs the classroom. Out of our hands.

So, this movement of ignorance and personal preference determining education or lack thereof has been in the works for a long time - much longer, I think, than we were aware, all of these things coming together to make the world so much worse for all of us, and those "liberal bastions", universities, appear to be run by the leaders of the movement.

I honestly blame the rise of anti-intellectualism and things like hating on old books because they're not up to modern standards on why people can't think with nuance and are afraid of bucking the norm or forming their own opinions. You're going to read Of Mice And Men and you're going to be fucking uncomfortable because that's the goddamn point. You're going to read the original Romeo and Juliet and remember the whole point is to make fun of how stupid and dramatic teenagers are and you're going to sit there and be uncomfortable because the only way you're going to expand your horizons is if you're feeling weird and off and hate it for awhile.

You're going to have to sit in front of the trolley problem as hate that there's no "win" scenario because that's the point. There is no Everybody Wins and Nothing Bad Happens in real life 99% of the time.

You need to be uncomfortable. You need to be conflicted. You cannot be a complete, nuanced, and intelligent person if you refuse to engage with the gray. You are just a bad person at that point. And a stupid one. Because I'm done pulling punches.

[tzikeh]

This is The Good Place: The Video Game

Some day I want to write one of those time loop VNs where the only way to break the time loop is to reach the end of the affected span without anybody murdering anybody else, which is much more difficult than it sounds not because there's a secret murder conspiracy or a magical serial killer, but simply because there's some Jean-Paul Sartre shit going on and this specific group of people seems to have been chosen specifically for their ability to drive each other to homicide.

[tzikeh]

I had a neat thought so I'm gonna do a tumblr post about it

No nuance!! Just answer!!! I am soso curious :)

[tzikeh]

it's good that the word "four" is "four" letters long

[tzikeh]

at some point you have to realize that you actually have to read to understand the nuance of anything. we as a society are obsessed with summarization, likely as a result of the speed demanded by capital. from headlines to social media (twitter being especially egregious with the character limit), people take in fragments of knowledge and run with them, twisting their meaning into a kaleidoscope that dilutes the message into nothing. yes, brevity is good, but sometimes the message, even when communicated with utmost brevity, requires a 300 page book. sorry.

[tzikeh]

Cynthia Erivo devouring Gethsemane at the Hollywood Bowl

[tzikeh]

[tzikeh]

Nothing that has been done to "protect the children" in the history of doing things to protect the children has ever actually been about protecting the children.

A new bill in Congress, the SCREEN Act, distinct from the Kids Online Safety Act, is under consideration. If enacted, it would mandate comprehensive age verification for online access to safeguard children.

[tzikeh]

they are barring wikipedia. they are barring spotify. they are barring important news - both national news and world news. they are barring mental health forums and LGBTQ related things and so much more. this is not about protecting children, it has never been about protecting children.

the online safety act is an insane privacy breach, and if that does not scare you then you need to think harder about it. it is going to end up in a massive data leak - all the information is getting collected by random third party systems. can we trust them? no. can we even hold them accountable? no. because the government couldn’t even make their own system to do these age checks.

and i hear you - it is important that kids don’t see porn. but even if all this was about protecting kids, it’s sloppy and useless. it’s easy (for now) to get around with a vpn and the only thing the act doing is censoring things that it shouldnt. if the government wanted to protect kids, they would do something concrete about it - they would be putting more funding into education, for example.

of course the policy isnt called “national surveillance”. they’re not going to call it that. everything will be hidden behind things that people want.

so email your MP, and tell other people that this is WAY more than blocking porn from children - this is the first step towards national surveillance.

[tzikeh]

sound off everyone what’s the worst texture. just in anything. for me it’s ground beef not even a question

[tzikeh]

The way you're increasingly just Not Allowed to create shit that isn't G rated if you want to get paid is fucking insane & it's not even a legality issue it's that credit card companies simply Don't Want To

[tzikeh]

[tzikeh]

Who else is looking forward to this

[tzikeh]

What a week for SurfShark and NordVPN.

What a week for SurfShark and NordVPN.