renefitzgeraldgreen

[renefitzgeraldgreen]

One must imagine Sisyphus happy

[renefitzgeraldgreen]

Reminded by flag discourse about my proposal for a new Massachusetts state flag. The looming black triangle represents the creeping dread one experiences in Massachusetts, the white represents the horrible weather, the blue represents microplastics, and the slogan represents I saw it on a pack of cigs and thought it sounded sick

[renefitzgeraldgreen]

Perfect for summer, a 1920s picnic set. From Art Deco and Art Nouveau, FB.

[renefitzgeraldgreen]

me: if I were rich and evil in the dune universe I wouldn’t own a mirror. I’d just have a tlexileu face dancer who follows me around and mimics my appearance so I know what I look like. my human mirror.

pip, delirious with migraine: having a guy who does the job of an object is one of the funniest things about dune… guy who is a toilet. you shit in his hand and he takes it away.

me: he’s been genetically engineered to have scoop-shaped hands. no… one scoop shaped hand, the other is a soft cloth to wipe you clean.

pip: EW

me: sorry

pip: that does sound like something the harkonnens would have though

[renefitzgeraldgreen]

I imagine that becoming a parent was a wildly different thing in like the 70s before giving a shit was invented. Everyone just supposed that everyone's gonna do it and you just have your first at 21 after getting married at 19, let them little shits loose outside all day while your husband is at work at the Forever Chemical Pollutant Factory and you're sitting at home drunk as hell breastfeeding the baby. Your eldest Little Ronny Douglas runs in at 9 pm like "hey ma I was crawling through the ditches at the abandoned mine field three towns over and I caught this frog and my friend Donny caught tetanus" and you're just like "yeah whatever that's nice dear" and tap the ashes from your cigarette on the bald spot on top his head. You don't know why that's there but it's been there a while and you've been using it as an ashtray for a few years and it seems fine.

[renefitzgeraldgreen]

Boyfriend tells me I’m banned from fixing things around the house now >:(

[renefitzgeraldgreen]

[renefitzgeraldgreen]

Ingrid Bergman

1963

[renefitzgeraldgreen]

I like preschool lunch time because it means I get to observe the Preschool Agora. or 3-4 year olds having conversations amongst each other in a large group. such as today they discussed who's been a baby before (conclusion: "even people we don't know") and who the first people were on earth ("let me guess," said one, "me.")

[renefitzgeraldgreen]

1917 South Ferry by Colin Campbell Cooper painting. From New York City History and Memories, FB.

[renefitzgeraldgreen]

PSA: if you want to describe a story as a 'Romeo and Juliet' story, please do make sure that the two houses are alike in dignity.

The original reasons the two houses hate each other - if there ever were any - are otherwise left unspecified, but the one thing that gets made clear right at the start is that those reasons are not socioeconomic differences. Please consider alternative cultural references to describe a forbidden romance between people of different socioeconomic status. There are a whole bunch of those too.

[renefitzgeraldgreen]

i think community radio should be the only kind of radio that's allowed. dj this morning was back announcing the songs he'd just played and said "and then we had mykonos by fleet foxes, one of hunter biden's crack smoking songs" and then went on a 7 minute tangent about how good a hunter biden podcast would be. you just aren't getting that on commercial radio

[renefitzgeraldgreen]

So one of the funny things about materials science is that Brilluoin zone diagrams for crystal lattices look like they come straight out of a medieval grimoire.

[renefitzgeraldgreen]

Unknown Amulets from England, 1800s Science Museum

[renefitzgeraldgreen]

man the public defender discourse pisses me off so bad. yeah. yeah I do think that every single person deserves representation. yeah that includes people who *have* committed rape and murder and abuse. when I say every single person I mean every single person. if your idea of justice excludes one person it excludes everyone. next question

[renefitzgeraldgreen]

Something everyone should know either as an authority or as a person labouring under an authority, being anywhere from a babysitter to a parent to a government entity, is that establishing a rule of any kind is incredibly labour-intensive and difficult to enforce.

So if you're going to make something into a rule, it HAS to be something you can both Verify and Enforce- if you can Verify but not Enforce, it's essentially just a suggestion. If it's something you can Enforce but not Verify, you're going to waste a lot of energy and time becoming an authoritarian dictator that nobody likes.

And because the process of Verification and Enforcement BOTH take a LOT of work, it makes no sense to waste all that work on establishing a Rule which has no Function.

For this reason, every Rule you set must perform a Function which gives you a return that is, if not greater, then at least EQUAL to the energy it takes to maintain, in one way or another. Otherwise, the whole system collapses.

Any authority that exists has limited time and limited resources, so it must prioritize rules that minimize the MOST HARM, that are EASIEST TO VERIFY, and are MOST ENFORCEABLE.

So, before you CREATE a rule, you must ask yourself:

What does this rule accomplish?

Is the reward of this rule greater than the expense of establishing it?

Can I verify when this rule has been violated?

Can I feasibly discipline one to violates this rule?

And, what I would argue is almost MOST important after all that,

5. How do I explain this rule in a way that people will want to follow it?

As a parent, for example, "do not set a campfire in the living room" is a good rule, because it is easily explained as a risk to personal safety and property, it's a rare enough situation to come up, it's easy to tell when it's happened, and a consequence like "you will not be left unsupervised for an extended period of time" or "you will write a report on house fires" could be implemented as discipline.

But as a parent, "no eating outside of meal times" is not a great rule in most circumstances. For one, food is easy to access, the harm that can come from snacking between meals is almost zero, it's almost impossible to prove, and there is no feasible way to stop someone from doing it OR make them WANT to follow it without lowering yourself to abuse.

So, if there is a behaviour an authority wants you to follow, it must first ask itself Why. Then decide if that is reasonable. Then decide if it should be a Rule or a Suggestion.

If the desired rule is not verifiable, or enforceable, then the authority must make peace with the fact that it will be taken as a suggestion. It has no other choice but to become an enemy, and slowly lose all respect and credibility.

You cannot make "no snacking" into a rule. But you CAN say, "this is how you keep a balanced diet, this is how you stay healthy, please don't take more than you'll eat at dinner, save leftovers for later".

You CAN make "no fire pits indoors" into a rule, and you can remain vigilant that it doesn't happen and give it your full focus when it does.

This is where laws based on social or religious judgement fail.

You cannot Verify or Enforce against drugs, crossdressing, homosexuality, sodomy, satanism, tattoos, prostitution, oral sex, or abortion. Not in any way that matters. Not in any way that Protects more than it Harms. It's difficult to prove, difficult to enforce, and it happens too much and too consensually to universally oppose. You can only expend energy and cultivate a population that distrusts you in trying.

You CAN Verify and Enforce against violence, abuse, theft, fraud, embezzlement, discrimination, and murder. Because it DOES Protect more than it Harms, and you can justify the expenses. Because these are things that happen nonconsentually, and can be prioritized, because there are Victims who experience Harm. Enforcing these rules can cultivate safety and trust instead of suspicion, cooperation instead of opposition within a populace.

Which is why laws against anything that does not cause harm, in my opinion, is doomed.

Because I've been raised and raised kids and seen kids raised in both ways, and I know that "because I said so" does nothing.

If you cannot Verify or Enforce, then the best you can do is Educate, provide safe options, and build a system to heal and recover for any potential fallout.

But that’s just my opinion.

[renefitzgeraldgreen]

If you're having a private phone conversation with the phone off your ear, no headphones, and the speaker on in public, that's a public conversation now. That's an open invite, and I'm going to chime in if I have an opinion. This is now OUR disagreement about your boyfriend's spending habits.