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Tumblr is the reason why I have something I call the cashier test which is, if i told this to a random cashier at the grocery store, would they think you're crazy at best or at worst would they be warranted in leaping over the counter and beating the shit out of you. Karl Marx mpreg is crazy, but not beating the shit out of you crazy. The cashier will probably talk about you to their coworkers and it might even make their day. Telling someone they're complicit in their own oppression by working a minimum wage job at a grocery store makes them warranted in leaping over the counter to beat the shit out of you.

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🤯 wowwww she's so pretty!!! ...u-uhm but I don't have a skinniness fetish or anything 😨

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this is almost certainly not a novel take but

i do wonder how much of the derisive language you hear toward "resistlib winemoms" or whatever is just "people who grew up in Safely Blue Coastal Enclaves rebelling against ppl who remind them of their mom b/c they are emotionally stunted adults"

like, as A Child Of A Very Conservative Area, i have a very vivid recollection of the first time i encountered this type of person, and my reaction was mostly baffled delight. wait you're telling me this PTA mom with unassailable Wholesome Americana credentials is gassing up the cause of trans rights at her book club. you're telling me she's batting her eyelashes and "think of the children"-ing, except instead of doing that to promote some obnoxious "ban this book from the school curriculum" agenda, she's shaming her state representative into actually funding the damn schools? i do not care how cringe her UV-bleached "i'm with her" bumper sticker is or whatever, she is working extremely hard & successfully on shit i care about and i will brook no slander against her

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You could fix him? Yeah okay well I could give him a lobotomy

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So anyways with the rapid rise of fascism I feel it’s a good time to point out that it’s perfectly legal to follow unjust orders slowly, badly, or inefficiently

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dear professor i cant seem to lock in. its so over

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the wrong people in this world are unlearning shame

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as my grass-touching expands in scope, I constantly become more horrified at the mangled remains of what is known as "activism" on social media

the ideas about "activism" that seem popular among left-leaning youth on internet, are just the opposite of what is good to do in real life!

People think they should cut everyone with different views than them out of their lives, when in reality we need to form coalitions with anyone with values we can share. They think that quietly working within the system is stupid and a waste of time, when it's vitally necessary for somebody to be always doing that. They think that it's good to be angry and upset all the time and to lash out and argue with people, when it's very important to maintain internal peacefulness and focus on work that is within your ability to handle

It is most important of all to find older activists to listen to and learn from...

...and it could be hard to find them using the device that constantly hemorrhages all your personal information to the government. For obvious reasons.

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To be clear, his boss literally refused to acknowledge a unanimous ruling by the Supreme Court.

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Why are the only ads I get on this fucking website ads for conservative shit. I hate conservative politics and that’s all I reblog is stuff about how I think it’s cruel and weird.

I guess that means my tracker blockers are doing a really good job?

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can we please please please learn to differentiate between things that are good but devalued because of their association with women (caring for children, being compassionate), things that are neutral but seen negatively because of their association with women (the colour pink, having long hair), and things that are bad but associated with women because of misogyny (being materialistic, being stupid) because otherwise we’re gonna keep getting takes like “being gender nonconforming is anti feminist” and “not studying for your classes is feminist”

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hey, it's me!

i really want people to stop writing scientists as awkward, stilted conversationalists who don't understand idioms or emotions and start writing them as depressed alcoholics who swear like sailors unless they're in a specifically academic situation

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Thank you for the note on that post about activism. I’ve never seen a protest actually work and I’m 24 years old. I know It’s important to keep trying but, you hit the nail on the head for why young people are so disillusioned, nothing we do seems to help. Do you have any information about some that did, and maybe what the difference was?

Hi anon,

Yes, I have one very current example of an ongoing protest that is working:

People have been protesting outside of Tesla dealerships all around the country every Saturday for months now, and these small, localized protests (as well as online activism and generalized social pressure) absolutely have been helping to tank Tesla's stock price, which is one way of weakening Elon Musk's power. These protests have made it unpleasant for people to get their cars serviced, way less likely to go to a dealership to buy, and much more uncomfortable about driving their cars around town because of the stigma associated with Tesla. Have they stopped Musk from running roughshod with DOGE? No. But they have made people look elsewhere for electric cars, and they've clearly sent Musk into a tailspin. They're more effective than meeting once en masse at fewer places, because the consistency helps remind people this is a live issue, and if you're driving down a big arterial road in your random town and see a bunch of people posted up with signs at the Tesla dealership rather than seeing them in NYC on TV that says to you "people in my town, in my area, care about this. It's not just the most annoying people in the major metro areas that I resent calling for this stuff. People like me, living in my circumstances, also care."

I will also say that protest and public outcry is constantly making changes at the local level. Here's a negative example: If you're wondering why you're struggling so much with the cost of housing, it's probably in large part because NIMBY activists - people who don't want any new housing built, especially the kind of dense housing that's good for a city's financial solvency and for lower income people and for the environment – are consistently showing up to city/town council meetings and loudly protesting any new development. These tend to be people who don't want housing stock to increase because it will make housing cheaper (and thus their single-family properties less valuable for resale or remortgage) and also people who are just allergic to change. You know who's not showing up to these meetings? Young people who need housing. Part of that is structural (people who are struggling to find housing are more likely to be economically stressed and not have time to show up regularly to council meetings) but it's also that a lot of young people are unwilling to spend their free time doing something "boring" like advocating for themselves and their communities at a meeting where you have to wait around and maybe have a speech or a letter prepared, or do some research beforehand. And maybe if more people showed up to oppose NIMBYs at boring meetings, more housing would get built. In my area the NIMBY harassment of pro-housing city council members has been so bad that some have resigned out of fear for their families' safety. If these people had had more support, maybe they'd still be doing the work.

Protest isn't always an organized mass on a public street; it's also citizens making some organized attempt to oppose a policy or project, or citizens calling loudly for the need for a project.

I tend to think mass protests with vague goals are ineffective at achieving their vague goals for obvious reasons, but that they do have some utility; they bring people together and help them make connections with other people who are motivated to make change. But if you want to see change that's less abstract or incidental, that's really directly a reflection of your actions, then focus on local activism, and have clear policy goals in mind. If you want more housing, for instance, you have to start caring about zoning, about how development works, about how local property tax laws affect the issue, or you have to start listening to people who DO care about that stuff.

The biggest mistake I see young people making is basing your politics entirely on the vibe. The people who are effective at making change figure out how things actually work. They don't have to be the people who have the best or purest motives and cleanest, most virtuous personal politics. Often they're not.

That sometimes means learning stuff you would once have found boring, and deciding it's interesting because it's materially useful to your cause. I also means building coalitions with people who disagree with you on some things in order to achieve a goal you DO agree upon.

The Tesla protests are trying to create a physical and social impediment to people who would otherwise by Teslas, and by focusing on the places where a lot of those sales would actually happen (and where all the vehicle servicing has to happen, because Tesla sucks) they have actively made it annoying and unpleasant to buy a Tesla. Protesters introduce real friction into a process that Tesla wants and needs to be easy. Similarly, NIMBYs introduce friction into the process of housing development, so even if a developer has already bought a lot and is planning to build a bunch of new units that could house a lot of people (has designed the development, put in the proposal, has the permits, is all ready to go), the developer might end up deciding it's not worth it because the delays caused by change-averse retires at city council meetings are costing them too much. So you have less housing in your city over-all, rents and property values remain prohibitively high, density remains low (which means the city's tax base is smaller and you have less money to go to projects that benefit everyone, like schools and libraries and social programs and even basic infrastructure like sewage systems and roads). If you show up to that city council meeting and are a counter to the voices trying to make friction - if you help easy the way instead - maybe the housing does get built. Maybe increases in supply mean the rents can come down a bit, because people have more options. The city gets a little bit denser, there's a little more money to hire another librarian, or fix the potholes on your street, or make safe bike lanes, or hire more school counselors. You've not only achieved your goal of making it a little easier to find a place to live; you've made your town a better town in other ways, too.

There are a lot of ways that you can make a difference. If you don't think showing up to a reactionary mass protest every so often is the way for you (though I'd argue doing that is still helpful) that doesn't mean that activism isn't for you, or that you can't make major change. Pick something specific, and make that your thing.

It's also worth noticing that gun-control activists in Florida actually did get some stuff done; unfortunately a lot of the progress they made was rolled back, and that's a good lesson in realizing that the arc of the moral universe doesn't automatically bend toward justice. You have to consistently, actively make it bend, and if you don't – if you give up – things get worse.

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There's a lot of news this week, so I understand if people haven't seen this yet, but I want to be super clear that the Democrats are doing another thing that the "Do something!" people want: create a shadow cabinet.

This, by the way, is in addition to the other thing that the "Do something!" people want that the Democrats have already done: Start a town hall series.

I mention this because I'm not doing the thing anymore where you don't pay attention to what Democrats are doing because you aren't informing yourself and then you complain that Democrats aren't doing something that they absolutely are doing, and then 100 idiots share your uninformed post and you all help Democrats lose elections while insisting you had nothing to do with it.