standinggoblin

[standinggoblin]

everyone thank your nearest trans man for being alive and putting up with all the bullshit on the internet lately

[standinggoblin]

Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria is such a weird theory because it's like there's a very obvious explanation for why middle school kids who didn't have dysphoria before might suddenly have dysphoria. Like huh weird I wonder what very obvious and widely known change that could cause kids to suddenly become very uncomfortable in their gender or sexual identity starts in between the ages of 10 and 14. Guess we'll never know. Must be peer pressure to *checks notes* become the only gender minority in your whole school singling you out for harassment by your peers. Couldn't be puberty suddenly giving you new body parts/bodily functions that are wrong for you.

[standinggoblin]

I think this is super important to remember.

[standinggoblin]

so itchio has shadowbanned any games tagged with 'nsfw', 'adult', or 'erotic' so they don't show up in searches, and several devs have reported that their r18 games have been removed from the site with no warning

you know, maybe the internet shouldn’t be controlled by payment processors and terf lobbyists. and maybe people should be more concerned about this rise of censorship on queer media.

[standinggoblin]

Could you elaborate on what you mean by you don't believe in magic but have an intense interest in it?

Idk but it feels strangely off putting to find that out. Like you study all this occult stuff but you don't actually practice or believe in any of it?

I'm trying not to look at this like "I'm not Christian I just like to study how they tick because it's fascinating how they believe that BS" but like you're studying magic and religion but you aren't taking any of it seriously? You don't believe any of it? You're just interested in it as a static study topic when it's sacred to a lot of people?

I've followed you for a while it just felt weird to see you say that and I wanna know more about what you meant by that before I actually get upset.

A bunch of archeologists found actual, real, books of spells buried in the desert in North Africa. Sure I might not belive that the spells can actually command demons, but that's maybe one of the most interesting things to happen in human history. I feel like it's weird to NOT to find that interesting.

But also like, do you really feel like it's impossible to be genuinely interested in a topic as broad and influential and historically rich as Christianity without believing in it? Because that happens all the time. A friend of mine spent nearly 10 years studying medieval Christianity at university. He probably knows more about Thomas Aquinas than some priests, and he's Buddhist. Is it weird that he likes medieval Christianity even though he doesn't believe in it? No absolutely not. It is good when people have a scholarly interest in things.

[standinggoblin]

Reading the new checks that might come in due to the Online Safety Act in the UK and this is actually bullshit

[Image Transcript:

And how will I prove my age?

There’s a number of methods a site or app might use to ask you to confirm your age. They might do this check themselves or use another company to do the check. These methods include:

Facial age estimation – you show your face via photo or video, and technology analyses it to estimate your age. 

Open banking – you give permission for the age-check service to securely access information from your bank about whether you are over 18. The age-check service then confirms this with the site or app.

Digital identity services – these include digital identity wallets, which can securely store and share information which proves your age in a digital format.

Credit card age checks – you provide your credit card details and a payment processor checks if the card is valid. As you must be over 18 to obtain a credit card this shows you are over 18.

Email-based age estimation – you provide your email address, and technology analyses other online services where it has been used – such as banking or utility providers - to estimate your age.  

Mobile network operator age checks – you give your permission for an age-check service to confirm whether or not your mobile phone number has age filters applied to it. If there are no restrictions, this confirms you are over 18. 

Photo-ID matching – this is similar to a check when you show a document. For example, you upload an image of a document that shows your face and age, and an image of yourself at the same time – these are compared to confirm if the document is yours.

End Transcript.]

Not only is this such a fucking breach of privacy, but this is going to hurt adults in vulnerable and abusive situations. Some adults don’t have bank accounts or credit cards or even a fucking phone. I’m one of them. I could not give half of this information even if I wanted to. What the fuck is this. Fuck the UK government. This isn’t going to protect kids, this is just going to hurt adults, and I know full well when they say “sites that allow pornography” they’re going to be going after sites that have huge amounts of queer content, like tumblr and Ao3. Queer kids are gonna lose their fucking communities because of this shit. Abuse victims are going to lose online support systems because of this.

I’m genuinely fucked off about this, and worried about whether I’m going to lose every single one of my online friends. Anyone in the UK, please email your MP and sign this petition. It needs to reach 100k signatures to pass through Parliament.

I’m only hoping the backlash will be big enough for them to stop implementing these measures.

[standinggoblin]

Everyone: Please please please don't write your books in Google Docs. Frankly don't use Google Drive for personal stuff.

Their terms of service say they take down stuff like content related to terrorism and trafficking, but this Google Sheet was literally a list of movies I'd watched this year and books I'd read.

[standinggoblin]

Can we include darebee.com with ao3 and wikipedia on our list of really good nonprofits with excellent services that we stan?

It's a free, no sign-up, no ads fitness resource created by professionals who view this as activism (fitness should be accessible to everyone), and it's very thoughtful and thorough.

Features I really like:

- all instructions for workout routines are diagrammed on single pages with a clean, easy to read layout

- there's 30 or 60 day programs you can follow if you, like me, don't know what to do. they take you through a rotation of workouts so you're working different muscle groups on different day for a specific purpose

- there's so much variety and there's a filter so you can find the level and your goals and type of workout you wanna do

- you don't need any equipment

- some of the programs are RPGs or adventure stories! How's that for motivation. There's also badges and achievements or something but I haven't looked that closely at how that works yet

- they're nerds. they name workouts after D&D classes. There's a Lannistrr workout, a batcave workout, a witcher workout

- I've only scratched the surface

I'm doing this really easy one to start out

[standinggoblin]

when i first heard about the male loneliness epidemic i was like oh yeah close camaraderie and bonding between men is often discouraged in favor of competition or, if not discouraged, at least filtered through a lens of individualism that precludes deep connections. and then i learned what people meant by it (men arent getting laid) to which i say skill issue

[standinggoblin]

I've seen a comment like this a few times.

First, COVID doesn't really *kill* anyone. To use a morbid metaphor, COVID is the executioner but never the axe. My mom's "axe" was actually heart failure. But that was part of a causal chain of COVID, pneumonia, then cardiac arrest. So when doctors tell family, "they died of a heart attack" they are just describing the kind of axe.

And I think this executioner vs. axe idea explains a lot of the confusion. There's this urban legend that’s taken hold on both sides of the political spectrum.

The Right thinks pathologists are slapping "COVID death" on every certificate, even if someone died in a car crash.

The Left, meanwhile, worries that real COVID deaths are being undercounted because COVID isn’t always listed on the top line.

I suspect both are born from a misunderstanding about how cause of death is classified. And I think this notion has taken hold in the Left because COVID deaths were initially undercounted.

To be clear, there were undercounted deaths, especially early in the pandemic. Some people had COVID, died of a heart attack or stroke, and COVID wasn’t listed. And sometimes hospitals, under pressure or overwhelmed, made errors or didn’t update forms. So yes, it does happen. But probably not as often as people fear... at least not anymore.

The reasons for undercounting were myriad...

Early on, there were not enough tests to meet our needs, and so COVID wasn’t always confirmed.

Many people died at home or in long-term care, with no autopsy or lab work.

In some rural or underfunded areas, death reporting was chaotic or delayed.

So I don't want to dispute these stories. Pathologists can make mistakes. Forms can be filled out wrong. Hospitals can get busy and shit happens. But I also think a lot of folks don't understand how cause of death and death certificates work. And so they are worried their loved one's death was not counted in the official COVID data.

The usual standard for cause of death reports will list primary and secondary factors. It would be extremely unprofessional if a heart attack was the only factor listed, even without COVID as a factor.

If COVID is a primary factor, it gets counted as a COVID death. But if it is a secondary factor, then it would be counted as a "COVID contributing death." So it would still be counted, just not in the direct COVID death toll.

But I can assure you it still goes into the data and helps researchers improve COVID healthcare.

Let's look at a few hypothetical examples.

A US death certificate typically includes two parts.

Part I is the immediate cause of death, along with a chain of underlying causes.

Part II is significant conditions that may have contributed to the death, but were not part of the causal chain.

So, for example, a certificate might say:

Part I a. Acute respiratory distress syndrome b. Pneumonia c. COVID-19

Part II a. Hypertension b. Type 2 diabetes

COVID-19 caused the pneumonia and the pneumonia caused the respiratory distress and the distress caused death. A clear chain of events.

The hypertension and diabetes were extra things that made it harder for the body to fight the infections.

This is a COVID death. If the person did not have COVID, they would probably still be alive. But all of those factors worked together to cause the deadly outcome.

Now let's say someone died of a heart attack a month after being infected with COVID. The death certificate might look something like this…

Part I a. Myocardial infarction

Part II a. COVID-19

It's very possible that COVID put the body into distress and was a factor in the heart attack. But the immediate cause is still listed as a heart attack. So this would be classified as a contributing factor and not a direct COVID death.

Many people came up with conspiracies because COVID-19 was put on death certificates in this way, but they did not understand that almost all deaths are multifactorial. For the sake of accuracy, the death certificates list every factor that may have contributed. And if they don't, you may want to report the error to the hospital. It can be updated and corrected in the data.

Many COVID deaths were probably not counted in the total. If we eliminate COVID, we still had 130,000 excess deaths in 2020. Data scientists believe many of these were COVID deaths that were improperly classified. But as processes improved and the chaos lifted, I think the data has become more accurate. And even if COVID isn't listed as the axe, it is most likely still counted in some way.

[standinggoblin]

Your feminism is fake and pointless if it doesnt include trans and intersex people.

and yes, im talking about transfems, transmascs, nonbinaries, intersex trans people, intersex cis people, intersex cistrans people, people with xenogenders, people who use neopronouns, etc.

[standinggoblin]

@ date everything community when it comes to mac

[standinggoblin]

Do you not see why people believe astrology tho??

so i'm a custodian.

whenever someone does something cool like shit on the bathroom floor or get blood all over a toilet, i have to close the bathroom down by blocking the doorway with a CLOSED sign.

this sign is big and bright. it says CLOSED in four languages and has a do not enter symbol. it completely blocks the doorway. the only way to enter is to look directly at the sign and either move it or climb over it.

almost every single time i shut down a bathroom so i can suit up and clean a biohazard, someone will enter the bathroom with a dead-eyed, slack-jawed expression and try to wordlessly walk past me to use a stall.

and every single time, i have to block their path and say, "this bathroom is closed. there is one directly down the hall, marked by signs. please leave," and they either try to argue that THEY specifically should be allowed to use this one, as if they are god's most special little guy, or express shock even though they, again, had to contend with the CLOSED sign to enter.

often, i am standing there in the middle of cleaning up bodily fluids having to firmly repeat myself. they always leave angry or confused.

anyways, you clicked this button to send me an ask about astrology:

[standinggoblin]

Deradicalization isn't just for people who got into MAGA BS.

It's for your leftist buddy who got in with a leftist group that promotes eugenics.

It's for your feminist friend who was lured into radical feminism with "divine feminine" rhetoric.

It's for you when you fall into something that you thought you were too smart for, because it never crossed your mind that fascism could be repackaged in a way that would appeal to you.

[standinggoblin]

maybe I'll get killed with rocks for saying this but idk I dont really like equating kindness or some kind of inherent moral goodness with the ability to find a romantic connection

[standinggoblin]

This is one of the best interactions I’ve ever had.

Two school age kids: “Oh look at the big white puppy!”

Their mother: “Come here, let me explain something to you. That dog is a Service Dog. Whenever you see a dog in a store like this you can’t distract it cause it’s working.”

Two kids: “What do you mean he’s working?”

Mom: “He helps that girl. You know how at school your teacher tells you to be quiet so you don’t get distracted doing your work? It’s the same thing with that dog. You can’t distract him.”

Two kids: “What does he help her with?”

Mom: “That’s her business. Your business is to not distract him so he can work.”

If children can understand so can you.

[standinggoblin]

i just can't convey the frustration and sorrow that it's been to grow up at first without the internet and then watching it bloom into this useful, fun, connecting force you sometimes spent time on, only for it to degrade into this constant oppressive waste of time and energy where people are constantly pumping out algorithmically designed content for max algorithmic appeal and even the most simple search generates either no results or an infinite abyss of ai generated slop none of which is usable or correct. we briefly had a library of alexandria and then fed it into a paper shredder so advertisers could sell a random mash of pulp back to us at a premium.