mxmwitch-blog

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Robert Sapolsky about his study of the Keekorok baboon troop from National Geographic’s Stress: Portrait of a Killer.

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I think the only true conclusion one could ever draw about Sabrina carpenter from her music is that she has a kinda weird relationship with gender, where she can never truly decide if being a woman is a good & powerful thing or a bad & weakening thing, and she can never decide if that’s her own fault or the fault of the male society in which she lives. this is not a criticism to be clear: that seems like a very normal way to engage with the world to me. it’s just funny to me that the seemingly most personally revealing aspect of her music is the way she seems to have no idea how to live as a straight woman. I can’t relate to this at all because I am not a straight woman, but man does it seem accurate to the experiences of straight women that I know. Straight women sound off. If you’re out there. Straight women can you hear me? Is it that me espresso?

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Small gods is a masterpiece and one of the most important moments in it deserves more attention.

I think this exchange gets overlooked a lot because it happens right before the big climax, but I think it shows the basic principle of the book boiled down to its most essential core. The importants of humanity and view people as people.

"Think logically, will you?" he said. "You're a philosopher, aren't you? Look at the crowd!" Urn looked at the crowd. "Well?" "They don't like it,." Simony turned. "Look, Brutha's going to die anyway. But this way it'll mean something. People don't understand, really understand, about the shape of the universe and all that stuff, but they'll remember what Vorbis did to a man. Right? We can make Brutha's death a symbol for people, don't you see?" Urn stared at the distant figure of Brutha. It was naked, except for a loin-cloth. "A symbol?" he said. His throat was dry. "It has to be." He remembered Didactylos saying the world was a funny place. And, he thought distantly, it really was. Here people were about to roast someone to death, but they'd left his loin-cloth on, out of respectability. You had to laugh. Otherwise you'd go mad. "You know," he said, turning to Simony. "Now I know Vorbis is evil. He burned my city. Well, the Tsorteans do it sometimes, and we burn theirs. It's just war. It's all part of history. And he lies and cheats and claws power for himself, and lots of people do that, too. But do you know what's special? Do you know what it is?" "Of course," said Simony. "It's what he's doing to-” "It's what he's done to you." "What?" "He turns other people into copies of himself." Simony's grip was like a vice. "You're saying I'm like him?" "Once you said you'd cut him down," said Urn. "Now you're thinking like him . . . "So we rush them, then?" said Simony. "I'm sure of-maybe four hundred on our side. So I give the signal and a few hundred of us attack thousands of them? And he dies anyway and we die too? What difference does that make?" Urn's face was gray with horror now. "You mean you don't know?" he said. Some of the crowd looked round curiously at him. "You don't know?" he said.

This is such a profoundly important part of the message of small gods, it's what makes Vorbis that monster that he is and what makes Brutha the man that he is.

The thing that Simony cannot understand, and that Vorbis never did is summed up best by granny Weatherwax in Carpe Jugulum

'There's no greys, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, iswhen you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is.' 'It's a lot more complicated than that-' 'No. It ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts.'

Simony just sees Brutha as a martyr, a tool to strenghten his rebellion and rally around, he's not seeing the person bound on the burning turtle, just how he can use its ashes.

Vorbis always thought like this, in fact he never saw people at all, his mind was never open to a single other person, he was the very embodiment of sin as viewed by granny, he never saw a single person as a person, only ever as a thing.

"So," said Vorbis. "The desert. And at the end of the desert?" JUDGEMENT. "Yes, yes, of course." Vorbis tried to concentrate. He couldn't. He could feel certainty draining away. And he'd always been certain. He hesitated, like a man opening a door to a familiar room and finding nothing there but a bottomless pit. The memories were still there. He could feel them. They had the right shape. It was just that he couldn't remember what they were. There had been a voice . . . . Surely, there had been a voice? But all he could remember was the sound of his own thoughts, bouncing off the inside of his own head. Now he had to cross the desert. What could there be to fear? The desert was what you believed. Vorbis looked inside himself. And went on looking. He sagged to his knees. I CAN SEE THAT YOU ARE BUSY, said Death. "Don't leave me! It's so empty!" Death looked around at the endless desert. He snapped his fingers and a large white horse trotted up. I SEE A HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE, he said, swinging himself into the saddle. "Where? Where?" HERE. WITH YOU. "I can't see them!" Death gathered up the reins. NEVERTHELESS, he said. His horse trotted forward a few steps. "I don't understand!" screamed Vorbis. Death paused. YOU HAVE PERHAPS HEARD THE PHRASE, he said, THAT HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE? "Yes. Yes, of course." Death nodded. IN TIME, he said, YOU WILL LEARN THAT IT IS WRONG.

The fact that the desert is empty for him because, even when he was alive he never saw the people infront of him so how could he now? He never listend, never learned, never took in the perspective of anyone else, just had his own thoughts echoing inside him.

Then there's Brutha who always saw people as people, he helped Vorbis through the desert when he had every reason to kill him, and when confronted with the same task again, he chose to help him across the black desert of death. In the same way he was the only person to believe in Om, he was the only person to actually see Vorbis. Not just as a monster, or the head of the Quisition, or a prophet or whatever other ideas of him people built up in their minds, he still saw him as a person in the end.

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I always felt like Frankenstein has a weird place in public consciousness as the "don't play God" story, when the actual story reads (at least to me) much more like "don't be a deadbeat dad"

Yes, Victor Frankenstein was totally irresponsible with science and his creation, but the argument the story presents seems to be much more "take care of what you made" than "don't create life/play God"

Maybe I am missing something, but I would love to read a story that actually and fairly explores the ethics and consequences of creating life

What would the story be like if Victor made a child that passed as human (so we don't get derailed by them getting mistreated because of their appearance) and actually took care of them?

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I'm not sure there is a version of "scaring the hoes" that can be rescued from the less-than-ideal conception of women in which the notion is embedded

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My child said to me:

“Other-donkey, Elsa likes macaroni kiko”

Can you understand what this sentence means? Write down your guess before I reveal the answer in the next tweet

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sisyphean slip: getting the same word wrong over and over again

freudian complex: the incorrect belief that every human being on earth has the same wierd kink as you

oedipus’ boulder: trying to prove over and over again that you don’t want to fuck your own mother

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brother what

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idk thinking about how sometimes you have to show up for people you aren't that close to, because sometimes you're just the person who's there. sometimes you invite a new friend to a party and end up having to sit with them through a panic attack. sometimes you run into an acquaintance on their worst day and they need to talk about what happened. sometimes someone is crying in a stairwell and you're the only one around to ask if they're okay. and none of this is "trauma dumping" or whatever the fuck it's just being there for people because you're the one in the room with them.

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i have three responses to "how is your writing going"

1) it's not

2) it's going

3) i am ENTHUSED. i have been BLESSED with the POWER of the MUSES. i am an UNSTOPPABLE FORCE OF CREATION i am the MOST ULTIMATE OF ALL WRITERS

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gotham is exactly the right amounts of wet and socioeconomically unstable to have spawned an INSANE grunge scene you just know their local shit is like the sonic equivalent of getting hit over the head with a car battery

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3.5 years until this election and we’re already at the condescendingly blaming voters over HYPOTHETICALLY not voting for this guy over demanding better from the democrats. let’s all explode

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nursing homes are not punishments.

They are supposed to function as care centers for people who are disabled.

So why is it our culture thinks its a joke to say "shape up or you'll be sent to a nursing home". Families are not trained medical staff. It is a luxury to stay in your home as your care needs increase. You can need a nursing home or similar level of care at any age.

Pay attention, how they are run is a sign of ableism and ageism. The lack of funding and abusive staff stories should matter to you NOW because if you arent disabled now you will be in someway (and well, because its basic compassion but if we had that I wouldn't need to make this post)

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i think every british journalist should just be gunned down

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Doomed love between late Summer and Autumn (the rot must consume)

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.❤️