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The thing about aggressive age-verification procedures is that they're a sign of a low-trust society. It's the sign of a society that expects people to be lying a lot. That's not a good thing for a society to be, even absent other factors.

I've spent the past few months living in Austria, and one of the things that has really impressed me about this country is how much it... trusts me. Transit works via the honour system. Nobody tries to card me when I buy beer. When I explained my usual prescription to my doctor here, she didn't try to persuade me I wanted something else instead. You can buy a vibrator from a vending machine.

And it all just works. The transit system is well-funded, the ERs are not full of dead drunk teens (it's hard to do too much damage to yourself with the weak-ass beer here, especially if comparatively few people drive), and nobody seems particularly fussed about it. This is the safest, cleanest, and happiest city I've ever seen. I live in what is broadly considered to be the worst part of town, and it's miles more pleasant than the nice parts of some North American cities I've lived in.

Nothing destroys trust more than enforcement. And if you have enough trust, you don't need enforcement. Isn't that better?

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One of the reasons I'll always stand by the 2013 Carrie remake is how it perfectly understands the psychology of a bully in the way few pieces of media do. The bullies in the original Carrie film adaptation, the one everyone praises, are cartoonish caricatures rather than real people, the all the interiority of Snidely Whiplash.

But in the 2013 movie you get to the scene where Chris Hargensen, the leader of the bullies, is brought into the principal's office and told that she'll not only be suspended, but banned from going to prom for how she and her pals bullied Carrie at the beginning of the movie, and the actress who plays her does this phenomenal job of conveying how, in Chris's mind, she's the victim. There's no cartoonish ranting or villainous monologuing, but rather a genuine outrage at a situation that she truly believes is unjust.

The actress and the movie both understand that in Chris's mind, she is entitled to torment Carrie - that her tormenting Carrie isn't just enjoyable, but a right that she has, a just and good thing for her to do because it the world is structured for her to do so, and that denying her that right is an injustice. The warped logic of the bully isn't "Haha I love being mean and evil," but rather, "When I hurt people, they deserve it and I deserve to enjoy doing it, because that is good and just."

And I think that's important because, like, we all have our Chris Hargensen moments. Every one of us has had a time where we felt entitled to be cruel, and recognizing that is important to being a better person. You can't let yourself fall into the trap of believing that your cruelty is always justified, or else Carrie is going to throw your car into a brick wall with you inside it.

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just another long hard day of contributing to low birth rates

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booktok YA n smut is one of those things where it’s rly hard to criticize it publicly for serious things like misogyny or racism or homophobia n how it enforces capitalism bc 99.9% of the backlash is ppl proclaiming the death of literature is coming bc women like to read porn. like I hate this as well but I hate it for a better reason that these ppl do.

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not to be dramatic but sometimes i feel like i don't belong anywhere on this earth like maybe all there is for me is perpetual loneliness + constant desire to go back to a place that doesn’t exist anymore

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I wish the public library was a guy so I could make out with it

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watching u crash out over a boy who has the brain waves in the frequency of a fart is insane considering how much u have going for u. step ur pussy up and lock in

STEP YOUR PUSSY UP AND LOCK IN…

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the only reason your leg could ever need shaving is if it's getting tattooed amen

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the persecution of lefthandedness is insane to think about because it was so intense for so long, in some places still is, without any clear profit motivation. sheer love of the game. as late as the 70s at least they were smacking my stepdad's hands for it with a wooden ruler at school, to this day he's in weird ambidexterity situation where he's not great with either side and notably clumsy due to poor hand-eye coordination. just wtf

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thinking about summer ending always leaves me wondering how different life will be by the time next summer comes

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Once i learn my lesson it's gonna be over for everyone

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who else notices the young straight women without boyfriends or sons who need something to project their gender essentialism on to so they're out here being weird about their male cats

"only girls with boy cats will understand 🩷" and its just a video of a cat being affectionate to its owner...girl that is just a cat and he loves you because he is your cat and not because he is a boy. you also removed his balls so any hormone that would make him any biologically different from a female cat is missing from his body. that is a eunich and he loves you because you pet him and give him yummy meal. not because he has a penis

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thinking about that dishwasher poll and the reactions to it going around because, like, i grew up without a dishwasher, right, no one i knew in mexico had dishwashers, they were considered a first world luxury for lazy americans so it's in my culture to make fun of people who don't know how to wash dishes lol much like how no one had vacuums (indoor carpeting was completely alien) and they were associated with an inability or a refusal to put in the effort to sweep and mop. and it's part of the pattern of taking pride in hard labor + looking unfavorably upon conveniences when you can't afford them (which i think can be good and can be bad - depends, not what this post is about regardless) but in the case of dishwashers specifically, i don't think it's common knowledge for people who've never had them (like me, until less than a year ago) that they are not only extremely energy efficient but they use less than 10 liters of water when a running tap of water can use something like 5 liters of water per minute, give or take depending on pressure. unlike things like air conditioners or clothes dryers they are a solid instance of a technology that does what we want technology to do: save us time, effort, money, and reduce environmental impact. and that's really neat! now the problem is we need to kill a bunch of billionaires so that in the communist utopia everyone can have one of these bad boys in their communal kitchen

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This is about to be the best fall ever bc I’m 23 and single and I’m not anybody’s mom and I’m about to sign up to run a marathon and I have so many concerts coming up and I’m I’m juggling work and studying well and my application cycle is coming together and I’m doing research in chemistry and my loved ones are a plane ride away

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people writing historical romance seem to love having a guy with a bad leg who walks with a cane but I’d like to see this energy in contemporary romance as well. there are handsome guys among us today who use canes

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I don't do nuance. No middle ground. Everything is either understandable or something you should be killed for. Where the line is drawn varies wildly by how much sleep I got the night before.