geftheshittalkingmongoose

[geftheshittalkingmongoose]

i was supposed to go to bed an hour ago dont tell my mom

[geftheshittalkingmongoose]

[geftheshittalkingmongoose]

[geftheshittalkingmongoose]

[geftheshittalkingmongoose]

I've always been fascinated by cooperation and communal living in the animal kingdom. There's so many reasons that species will live communally, and not all of them are because they particularly want to.

Maras, a large rodent species, are monogamous but will put their babies into a creche. One couple will stay to look after the babies whilst the rest of the parents go and graze for the day. If the sentries spot danger, the babies run into the burrows, safe and sound. It's a really effective system!

ID: A baby and adult mara touching noses with each other. They are rabbit-like in body shape, with fur that is a gradient from grey to reddish-brown.

The thing is, maras hate each other. They really, REALLY loathe being around other maras that are not their mate. They are NOT very sociable animals.

So when it's pickup time at the daycare, things can turn ugly very quickly. Whilst they may tolerate being in the same vicinity as another adult mara, there's only so much they can take before things go south. Punches. Kicks. Even the yeeting of babies. Their commensalism hangs by a thread, and they are constantly gnawing at it. But the creche system is so effective that they will continue doing this, litter after litter, year after year.

I think this is a really interesting example of how social behaviours can arise even when the animals are themselves not very tolerant of each other. It goes to show how useful working together can be, even if the thought of being in the same geographical area as someone else can send you into a blind rage.

[geftheshittalkingmongoose]

He added, after a pause: “Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.”

Les Misérables, Volume I / Book V / Chapter III, trans. Hapgood

[geftheshittalkingmongoose]

[geftheshittalkingmongoose]

[geftheshittalkingmongoose]

people needdddd to wear headphones in public because while on an otherwise very lovely walk in the park today i saw a guy sitting under a tree watching a porn parody of the star wars prequels

[geftheshittalkingmongoose]

i hate driving. here are the laws! if you break them there will be consequences! except youre also expected to break the law just a little bit. people will get mad at you if you dont. you dont have right of way but the person who does is waving you forward for some reason. here's the speed limit! it's not the speed limit, the actual speed limit is that plus ~5-10. the light is green but you're in the turning lane. can you go? should you have gone just then? the person behind you is honking at you. there's a weird noise coming from your engine; if you try to do the right thing and get it checked out, will you get scammed? you are driving a 1-2 ton metal machine rocketing at speeds unknown to humankind for most of history. around a million people die in car accidents every year; that's about one person every thirty seconds. if you take that seriously and try to drive safely then people get mad at you.

[geftheshittalkingmongoose]

[geftheshittalkingmongoose]

this is so fucking funny I love sharks

[geftheshittalkingmongoose]

Dropout didn't spend $15,000 on Seal's Kiss from a Rose. They spent $30,000.

[geftheshittalkingmongoose]

Domestic incompetence is going to kill men

[geftheshittalkingmongoose]

I feel like some of you guys think "bad art" is like someone gluing rhinestones to a water melon, or a guy who made his own armchair out of Ohio license plates, or a trashy romance novel where someone says "the blue-eyed one kissed the brown-eyed one," when in reality bad art is a 1000000 Billion Dollar movie where none of the workers got paid and every single creative decision was market tested to see how lucrative of a profit it could foreseeably make to wow shareholders.

[geftheshittalkingmongoose]

I see posts go by periodically about how modern audiences are impatient or unwilling to trust the creator. And I agree that that's true. What the posts almost never mention, though, is that this didn't happen in a vacuum. Audiences have had their patience and trust beaten out of them by the popular media of the past few decades.

J J Abrams is famous for making stories that raise questions he never figures out how to answer. He's also the guy with some weird story about a present he never opened and how that's better than presents you open--failing to see that there's a difference between choosing not to open a present and being forbidden from opening one.

You've got lengthy media franchises where installments undo character development or satisfying resolutions from previous installments. Worse, there are media franchises with "trilogies" that are weird slap fights between the makers of each installment.

You've got wildly popular TV shows that end so poorly and unsatisfyingly that no one speaks of them again.

On top of that, a lot of the media actively punishes people for engaging thoughtfully with it. Creators panic and change their stories if the audience properly reacts to foreshadowing. Emotional parts of storytelling are trampled by jokes. Shocking the audience has become the go to, rather than providing a solid story.

Of course audiences have gotten cynical and untrusting! Of course they're unwilling to form their own expectations of what's coming! Of course they make the worst assumptions based on what's in front of them! The media they've been consuming has trained them well.

[geftheshittalkingmongoose]

Things cats were right about all along:

Fuck staying hydrated by drinking enough water - eat! more! wet! food! (watermelon, cucumbers, SOUP!)

Feels great to be really high up in your house where you can see the whole place (loft bed loft bed loft bed loft bed!)

Express yourself as clearly as possible when people are touching you and you don't want them to.

Optional, but you can also express yourself clearly when your people are not touching you and you want them to.

Sometimes it's important to just go "hmm. actually, I don't care" and wander off.

You don't have to be the strongest or toughest to defend yourself, it's enough to just be difficult enough to not be worth the trouble.

Ghosts will eventually leave if you stare at them for long enough.