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Concept: TMA quotes but it's Barbie

Proof of concept:

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I grew up with the DIC dub of sailor moon. She had little psas at the end like ‘sailor moon says don’t have an eating disorder’ or ‘sailor moon says be a good friend.’

Bur the main takeaways from Sailor Moon were:

1. Sometimes gender is ‘rock’ or ‘sideways planet’ and you’re going to have a crush on them anyway.

2. Friendship is legitimately very important!!

3. Attempts to exploit teenage girls for profit should be met with ✨violence ✨

4. Always have a good outfit

And these are the important messages that are lost in ‘issues’ shows and tbh 90% of other shows I was exposed to while babysitting

modern American kids cartoons are just either cocomelon clones or ego stroking slop for emotionally stunted 30 year olds who need their political beliefs reinforced. there is no in between.

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ed zitron, a tech beat reporter, wrote an article about a recent paper that came out from goldman-sachs calling AI, in nicer terms, a grift. it is a really interesting article; hearing criticism from people who are not ignorant of the tech and have no reason to mince words is refreshing. it also brings up points and asks the right questions:

if AI is going to be a trillion dollar investment, what trillion dollar problem is it solving?

what does it mean when people say that AI will "get better"? what does that look like and how would it even be achieved? the article makes a point to debunk talking points about how all tech is misunderstood at first by pointing out that the tech it gets compared to the most, the internet and smartphones, were both created over the course of decades with roadmaps and clear goals. AI does not have this.

the american power grid straight up cannot handle the load required to run AI because it has not been meaningfully developed in decades. how are they going to overcome this hurdle (they aren't)?

people who are losing their jobs to this tech aren't being "replaced". they're just getting a taste of how little their managers care about their craft and how little they think of their consumer base. ai is not capable of replacing humans and there's no indication they ever will because...

all of these models use the same training data so now they're all giving the same wrong answers in the same voice. without massive and i mean EXPONENTIALLY MASSIVE troves of data to work with, they are pretty much as a standstill for any innovation they're imagining in their heads

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no but genuinely I lose a little more patience for people who won't wear wool, leather, silk, or fur every day that I live in a world where plastic is increasingly the only damn kind of clothing you can find (or the only kind of fabric for sewing, even)

obviously, animal cruelty is horrible. I believe that even industries that rely on the deaths of animals should make their lives as good and their ends as humane as possible. and many of these industries need tighter environmental regulations on their production practices- some of the chemicals involved are highly toxic and ill-controlled at times

but at some point, you have to wake up to the fact that the only alternative we've found to date is destroying our planet

it's all plastic. and plastic is horrible for the world- the environment, humans, and especially animals. how cruelty-free is it to cause mass habitat loss? or climate change that disrupts food sources for those animals on a vast scale? how is that better than the deaths of a relatively small proportion of animals comparatively?

(and don't even start with "but pineapple leather! but cactus leather!" when those are still basically plastic due to heavy plastics use in their production processes. there is currently no non-plastic alternative to most animal-based textile products)

I've always tried to keep in mind that we all have to decide where our line is, that we all consume and there's no way of living in this world that doesn't take something from it. that for me, plastic clothing is to be avoided as much as possible, and for others, animal clothing products are to be avoided as much as possible. that the choice is equally valid

but I'm having a hard time seeing it as valid anymore when it just feels like trying to push the unpleasant part away from yourself so you can pretend your choice has no negative impacts. you're not wearing animal skin (or wool that an animal didn't even die to produce), so surely your way of doing things is better! no animals were harmed in the making of your outfit!

except. they were.

they and all the rest of us.

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A bird explaining to a hedgehog crossing so it doesn’t die.

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Activism is not cold-calling.

Activism is not cold-calling, and this is critically important to understand.

I'm seeing a lot of posts on here about 'building bridges' and 'finding community,' and then (extremely valid) response posts saying "BUT HOW??" And I'm going to explain something that can be very counter-intuitive: there is strategy involved in community.

As a longtime volunteer labour organizer, I’ve taken and taught many trainings on the strategy of talking. Something that surprises a lot of people is the very first thing you do in a union campaign. You sit down with your organizing committee, take out pen and paper, and literally map it out. You draw a physical map of the workplace: where are the entrances, exits, break rooms, supervisor offices. Essentially, ‘where is it safe to have a union conversation.’ Then you draw another physical chart of your coworkers. You sort out who is union-friendly, openly hostile to unions, or somewhere in the middle, and then you plan out very deliberately and carefully who talks to whom and in what order.

Consider: If Vocally Leftist Jane walks up to Conservative David and says "hey what do you think about unions," David is going to shut down immediately. He's not inclined to listen to Jane. But if Jane talks to Moderate Jason and brings him into the fold, then Jason is a far more effective strategic choice to talk to David, and David may actually hear him out without an instant reaction.

IMPORTANT CAVEAT: If Conservative David turns out to be Alt-Right David, and could be dangerous to follow organizers, we write him off. We are not trying to reach Alt-Right David. We are trying to reach Conservative David, who may actually be persuaded to find solidarity with other employees as fellow workers. Jason is a safe scout to find out which one he is. It does no one any good if Leftist Jane (or even Moderate Jane who is a visible minority) talks to Alt-Right David and puts herself on his radar. Not only has she done nothing to convince Alt-Right David to join a union - she's probably actively turned him against the idea - but now she's also in danger and the entire campaign is at risk. NOBODY WANTS THIS. Jane was NOT a hero for doing this. The organizing committee was foolish and enacted a terrible strategy to everyone's detriment.

Where you can make a difference is with people who will listen to you. You having a conversation with your well-meaning but clueless Centrist Democrat Auntie, and maybe gently helping her understand some things the media has been glossing over, is way more strategically useful than you marching up to MAGA Neighbour You've Met Once and trying to "build community" or "understand" them. They don't care. They're impervious, dangerous, and cruel. But maybe your beloved auntie will think about what you said, and then talk to her friend Anna who IDs as "fiscally conservative" but didn't vote because she can't bring herself to get on board with Trump. Then perhaps Anna talks to her brother Nic who has MAGA leanings but isn't all the way there yet. Proto-MAGA Nic would not have listened to you, nor would he have listened to Centrist Democrat Auntie, but he might absorb some of what his sister is saying.

This is not a cop-out or an echo chamber. This is you spending your time and energy strategically and safely. You are not a useful activist to anyone if you’re dead. Anyone who is telling you to hurl yourself directly at MAGA assholes like cannon fodder has no understanding of the strategy behind community building, and you should feel comfortable writing them off.

Last point: If you are tired, emotionally devastated, and/or in danger: take a break. This post is for people who would feel better jumping into action, not for people who are too overwhelmed to even think about it right now. You are worth so much even if you’re not actively Doing Activism, and your rest is worth more than “a break period so you can recharge and Do More Activism.” We all deserve the individual dignity of being worthy of comfort, rest & safety just on the basis of being human, outside of whatever we're doing for others' benefit. To deny ourselves that dignity is to devalue ourselves, and that’s the absolute last thing any of us should be doing right now.

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okay. holding ur hands as i say this. look me in the eyes. i know this is overwhelming so here's where we start. if he wants you dead then your first act of resistance is survival.

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Alright, folks. It looks like we're going to war.

I do not mean that we should do violence. But I do think that as Americans, soldiers are our best mental model of organized, entrenched collective action.

What this means for you, day one:

You are not a hostage. You are vital manpower. We need you. I don't want you to die because god, that's awful - but also, every person we lose weakens our cause.

Your body is the machine which gives you the power to resist. It is your civic duty to eat and sleep to the best of your ability. Fuel your body. If you can't sleep, close your eyes for a while and get whatever rest you can.

Don't stay on the front lines. Soldiers get leave for a reason - it's because it makes them more effective. Take time away from the fight. Exhaustion, burnout, and PTSD are doing no favors.

There is no shame in being too disabled to fight, or in being wounded in action. If you're too depressed, traumatized, hurt, or otherwise disabled to take part at any point - that is ok.

There's plenty of work to do on the home front. Make sure your people are fed. Check in with them. Volunteer at an animal shelter. Pick up litter. If you can't fight, or you're on leave, then do what you can on the home front. Keep things running, so others have the time and energy to fight.

Leave no one behind. Homeless folks, disabled folks, BIPOC folks, the very young and very old - we know that the most vulnerable populations are going to suffer most in this conflict. Call out bullshit when you see it - but remember who the real enemy is. Fascism is too important for the left to eat itself again.

I don't know what fighting is going to look like. I don't think it will be violence, and I don't want folks to do violence. I'm using the language of warfare because I think it's easier to imagine what that looks like. We're going to do something.

Our mental image of collective action is really passive - we're just going to march and look really upset and they'll feel guilty and change.

That hasn't been working. The alt-right doesn't feel guilty when they see the harm they've done, and they aren't swayed by marches and protests. We need a new plan.

If anything, I think this election may have been a referendum on deprogramming the alt-right by convincing them that their cult is insane. It didn't work.

We need some kind of active resistance. Smarter and more experienced folks than me will come up with what that looks like. But for now, day one: eat something. sleep. We're going to need you.

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looks like october is…. octover

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And what about it

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Very specifically the origin story as written by a government safety worker with a secure retirement and unlimited access to decent coffee.

‘We are warning you this is hot because we crippled a woman and would rather mock and discredit her than pay her medical bills’ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaurants

‘This sign is here to remind you that dangerous areas are marked out with the different grey paint, because the safety yellow that indicates safe zones was ugly to our Scion of apartheid overlord. Death count: 2’

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So there's something I want to say re: intentionally withholding your vote, and I want to do it without coming across as condescending or dismissive.

I've worked as a field organizer in two campaigns, 2010 and 2012, and my job was to help turnout the vote for Democratic candidates up and down the ticket. Technology may have changed, but people are still knocking on doors for specific voters the way they were 12 years ago.

If you say you're not voting/voting 3rd party, the campaign volunteer is supposed to mark that and move on. Their job, in the final month of the election, is to make sure the campaign's supporters have all the information and resources they need to cast a vote.

They aren't collecting data on why you're withholding your vote. They aren't submitting opinion polling results to the campaign. Something like 155 million people voted in the 2020 election, and if you say you're not voting, the campaign is not going to waste a volunteer's time and morale begging you to vote when there are literally millions of other voters to turn out.

Let me repeat that: The campaign does not track why you're not voting. They simply note your vote is not a priority for turnout and move on.

I say this because I see a lot of promotion of non-voting like that's a boycott, when the function is not the same. A boycott is a coordinated mass refusal to engage with an institution—which sounds similar if you see a vote as a good or service to withhold. Unfortunately, it's not.

A vote is a choice you're making as part of a community hiring committee. Your abstention doesn't prevent someone from being hired. It just lowers the threshold for the worst candidate to succeed.

All this to say: In my direct experience as an organizer, abstaining from the vote sends a message. That message is not "You need to try harder to win my vote." It's "Don't waste time on me."

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pls tell me what ur great grandparents did for a living in the tags if u know... mine were dairy farmers, bakery workers and a security guard lol

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I'm not saying there are parallels, but...

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do u think omegaverse acknowledges covid-19 and the generation of people who permanently lost their sense of smell like how are they all scenting each other now is the omegaverse economy in shambles

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dark science beyond belief

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Guys, Netflix is going to make a modern day adaptation of Dorian Gray and they're making Basil and Dorian brothers