#Compound Inequalities

[math-journal2]

<— Unit 1 — Unit 2: Inequality — Unit 3 —>

Unit 2: Part 1 —>

Inequality

[Edit 2025_4_22]: Application problem correction

Location: [6] Checking

OG number: 960.08, Should be: 960

OG number: 960.06, Should be: 960

Basics

Compound Inequalities

Application Problems

Page 3

[ausetkmt]

Homelessness is compounded by more people losing housing because its unaffordable : NPR

Homelessness is compounded by more people losing housing because its unaffordable

Despite more attention and money to reduce homelessness, the numbers in many U.S. cities keep going up. Experts say a key reason is the persistent lack of affordable housing.

ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:

Homelessness in this country keeps going up. Los Angeles and New York City declared a record number of people without housing this past week, part of a steady rise since 2017. NPR's Jennifer Ludden is here to help us understand what's going on. Good morning, Jennifer.

JENNIFER LUDDEN, BYLINE: Good morning.

SCHMITZ: So cities have put a lot of money and effort into reducing homelessness. LA Mayor Karen Bass even ran on this issue. Why is this problem seems - why does it seem so intractable?

LUDDEN: Well, you know, for sure we do see cities really struggling with homeless encampments. This is hard. But experts tell me it's not like programs to move people into housing don't work. Los Angeles helps thousands find housing every year. The problem, they say, is that even more people keep losing housing because it is increasingly unaffordable. So nationwide, the places with the most homelessness are those where you have poverty and high housing costs.

SCHMITZ: So tell us more about the people who are losing their housing. How do they describe what's happening to them?

LUDDEN: So there's a landmark study just out that surveyed thousands of people without homes in California, and researchers interviewed hundreds of them. Margot Kushel at the University of California, San Francisco, says many describe this slow slide as they struggled to keep paying rent. They may have lost income, had their hours cut at work. Or some lost a job because of a health crisis, or the rent just went up. Kushel says a lot of people crowded in with relatives or friends.

MARGOT KUSHEL: And we found that those relationships, when they fell apart, fell apart quickly. People only had one day's warning. You know, when you're the 10th person in a one-bedroom apartment, not that surprising that there would be conflict there. Or sometimes people just felt like they could no longer impose.

LUDDEN: And to put numbers on the financial disconnect here - for the people who became homeless in that survey, their median monthly household income was $960. The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in California is 1,700.

SCHMITZ: That is a huge disconnect. I mean, you've reported on how the U.S. needs more affordable housing. And cities are spending more to build this. What's not working?

LUDDEN: You know, even with more building, the housing shortage is in the millions. Steve Berg with the National Alliance to End Homelessness also says zoning laws, some of which date back to segregation, by the way, make it really hard to build apartments in residential neighborhoods.

STEVE BERG: You hear of places that - where they're trying to build new, affordable apartment buildings. And the powers that be in the city don't want to have it. You know, neighbors will say, we don't want low-income people living here. And they'll stop the housing from being built.

LUDDEN: Berg also says housing that's billed as affordable and does get built, it's not always cheap enough for the lowest-income families, and he says more of it needs to be.

SCHMITZ: Well, to wrap this up, I mean, building new housing also takes a lot of time. What can be done to prevent people from losing housing in the first place?

LUDDEN: You know, at the top of that list would be expanding federal housing subsidies. Right now, only 1 in 4 people who qualify actually get them, and they're really hard to use. In fact, many landlords refuse to accept housing vouchers, so there could be more programs to help people find places that do. Also, Margot Kushel of UCSF would like to see more ways to catch people at risk of becoming homeless. You know, you could target health care clinics or social service agencies. In her survey, she was just shocked by how many people did not reach out anywhere for help as things were falling apart.

SCHMITZ: That's NPR's Jennifer Ludden.

[9nid]

JEE Series Part-09 | Solving Inequalities – 03 | Compound Inequalities | JEE Maths in Hinglish | @9nid

Welcome back to the JEE Series by 9nid!In Part-09, we’re diving into an important concept: Compound Inequalities — a must-know for scoring in JEE Mains & Advanced. 🧠 What You’ll Learn in This Video: What are compound inequalities Solving AND & OR inequalities Number line visualization for compound solutions Shortcut methods to handle multi-inequality expressions Real JEE-level examples –…

[edusquaremaths]

JEE Series Part-09 | Solving Inequalities – 03 | Compound Inequalities | JEE Maths in Hinglish | @9nid

Welcome back to the JEE Series by 9nid!In Part-09, we’re diving into an important concept: Compound Inequalities — a must-know for scoring in JEE Mains & Advanced. 🧠 What You’ll Learn in This Video: What are compound inequalities Solving AND & OR inequalities Number line visualization for compound solutions Shortcut methods to handle multi-inequality expressions Real JEE-level examples –…

[math-journal]

Mappy’s Review Problems

Silly wizard edition

[reasonsforhope]

"Environmental groups are claiming victory after Mitsubishi Chemical Group dropped plans for a $1.3 billion plant in the heart of Louisiana’s industrial corridor. 

In the works for more than a decade, the chemical manufacturing complex would have been the largest of its kind in the world, stretching across 77 acres in Geismar, a small community about 60 miles west of New Orleans. Tokyo-based Mitsubishi cited only economic factors when announcing the cancellation last week, but a recent report on the plant’s feasibility noted that growing community concern about air pollution could also hamper the project’s success. 

“The frontline communities are fighting back, causing delays, and that amounts to money being lost,” said Gail LeBoeuf with Inclusive Louisiana, an environmental group focused on the industrial corridor along the Mississippi River known as Cancer Alley.

The nonprofit group Beyond Petrochemical declared the project’s failure a “major victory for the health and safety of Louisianans.”

According to Mitsubishi, the plant could have produced up to 350,000 tons per year of methyl methacrylate, or MMA, a colorless liquid used in the manufacture of plastics and a host of consumer products, including TVs, paint, and nail polish.

The plant was expected to be a major polluter, releasing hundreds of tons per year of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, and other harmful chemicals, according to its permit information...

In July, a report on the plant’s viability warned that a global oversupply of MMA and fierce local opposition made the project a “bad bet.” 

Conducted by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, the report said that credit agencies are paying more attention to “community sentiment” about petrochemical projects, particularly in Louisiana. In Geismar and other parts of Cancer Alley, there’s a “disproportionately heavy concentration of polluting industrial facilities” and Mitsubishi could become “entangled in a decades-long dispute involving issues of racial inequality and environmental justice,” the IEEFA report said. 

Geismar residents are surrounded by about a half-dozen large chemical facilities that emit harmful levels of air pollution. Of the more than 6,000 people who live within the 3 miles of the planned project site, about 40 percent are Black or Hispanic, and 20 percent are considered low-income, according to federal data. 

“The air here is already so dirty that the kids can’t play outside anymore,” said Pamela Ambeau, Ascension Parish resident and member of the group Rural Roots Louisiana.

The proposed plant is the latest in a string of failed industrial projects in Cancer Alley. Since 2019, local activism was instrumental in halting the development of two large plastics complexes in St. James Parish and a grain export terminal in St. John the Baptist Parish. All three projects would have been built in historically Black and rural communities."

-via Grist, January 16, 2025

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Marshmallow Longtermism

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this week!

My latest column for Locus Magazine is "Marshmallow Longtermism"; it's a reflection on how conservatives self-mythologize as the standards-bearers for deferred gratification and making hard trade-offs, but are utterly lacking in these traits when it comes to climate change and inequality:

https://locusmag.com/2024/09/cory-doctorow-marshmallow-longtermism/

Conservatives often root our societal ills in a childish impatience, and cast themselves as wise adults who understand that "you can't get something for nothing." Think here of the memes about lazy kids who would rather spend on avocado toast and fancy third-wave coffee rather than paying off their student loans. In this framing, poverty is a consequence of immaturity. To be a functional adult is to be sober in all things: not only does a grownup limit their intoxicant intake to head off hangovers, they also go to the gym to prevent future health problems, they save their discretionary income to cover a down-payment and student loans.

This isn't asceticism, though: it's a mature decision to delay gratification. Avocado toast is a reward for a life well-lived: once you've paid off your mortgage and put your kid through college, then you can have that oat-milk latte. This is just "sound reasoning": every day you fail to pay off your student loan represents another day of compounding interest. Pay off the loan first, and you'll save many avo toasts' worth of interest and your net toast consumption can go way, way up.

Cleaving the world into the patient (the mature, the adult, the wise) and the impatient (the childish, the foolish, the feckless) does important political work. It transforms every societal ill into a personal failing: the prisoner in the dock who stole to survive can be recast as a deficient whose partying on study-nights led to their failure to achieve the grades needed for a merit scholarship, a first-class degree, and a high-paying job.

Dividing the human race into "the wise" and "the foolish" forms an ethical basis for hierarchy. If some of us are born (or raised) for wisdom, then naturally those people should be in charge. Moreover, putting the innately foolish in charge is a recipe for disaster. The political scientist Corey Robin identifies this as the unifying belief common to every kind of conservativism: that some are born to rule, others are born to be ruled over:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/01/set-healthy-boundaries/#healthy-populism

This is why conservatives are so affronted by affirmative action, whose premise is that the absence of minorities in the halls of power stems from systemic bias. For conservatives, the fact that people like themselves are running things is evidence of their own virtue and suitability for rule. In conservative canon, the act of shunting aside members of dominant groups to make space for members of disfavored minorities isn't justice, it's dangerous "virtue signaling" that puts the childish and unfit in positions of authority.

Again, this does important political work. If you are ideologically committed to deregulation, and then a giant, deregulated sea-freighter crashes into a bridge, you can avoid any discussion of re-regulating the industry by insisting that we are living in a corrupted age where the unfit are unjustly elevated to positions of authority. That bridge wasn't killed by deregulation – it's demise is the fault of the DEI hire who captained the ship:

https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/03/26/baltimore-bridge-dei-utah-lawmaker-phil-lyman-misinformation

The idea of a society made up of the patient and wise and the impatient and foolish is as old as Aesop's "The Ant and the Grasshopper," but it acquired a sheen of scientific legitimacy in 1970, with Walter Mischel's legendary "Stanford Marshmallow Experiment":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment

In this experiment, kids were left alone in a locked room with a single marshmallow, after being told that they would get two marshmallows in 15 minutes, but only if they waited until them to eat the marshmallow before them. Mischel followed these kids for decades, finding that the kids who delayed gratification and got that second marshmallow did better on every axis – educational attainment, employment, and income. Adult brain-scans of these subjects revealed structural differences between the patient and the impatient.

For many years, the Stanford Marshmallow experiment has been used to validate the cleavage of humanity in the patient and wise and impatient and foolish. Those brain scans were said to reveal the biological basis for thinking of humanity's innate rulers as a superior subspecies, hidden in plain sight, destined to rule.

Then came the "replication crisis," in which numerous bedrock psychological studies from the mid 20th century were re-run by scientists whose fresh vigor disproved and/or complicated the career-defining findings of the giants of behavioral "science." When researchers re-ran Mischel's tests, they discovered an important gloss to his findings. By questioning the kids who ate the marshmallows right away, rather than waiting to get two marshmallows, they discovered that these kids weren't impatient, they were rational.

The kids who ate the marshmallows were more likely to come from poorer households. These kids had repeatedly been disappointed by the adults in their lives, who routinely broke their promises to the kids. Sometimes, this was well-intentioned, as when an economically precarious parent promised a treat, only to come up short because of an unexpected bill. Sometimes, this was just callousness, as when teachers, social workers or other authority figures fobbed these kids off with promises they knew they couldn't keep.

The marshmallow-eating kids had rationally analyzed their previous experiences and were making a sound bet that a marshmallow on the plate now was worth more than a strange adult's promise of two marshmallows. The "patient" kids who waited for the second marshmallow weren't so much patient as they were trusting: they had grown up with parents who had the kind of financial cushion that let them follow through on their promises, and who had the kind of social power that convinced other adults – teachers, etc – to follow through on their promises to their kids.

Once you understand this, the lesson of the Marshmallow Experiment is inverted. The reason two marshmallow kids thrived is that they came from privileged backgrounds: their high grades were down to private tutors, not the choice to study rather than partying. Their plum jobs and high salaries came from university and family connections, not merit. Their brain differences were the result of a life free from the chronic, extreme stress that comes with poverty.

Post-replication crisis, the moral of the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment is that everyone experiences a mix of patience and impatience, but for the people born to privilege, the consequences of impatience are blunted and the rewards of patience are maximized.

Which explains a lot about how rich people actually behave. Take Charles Koch, who grew his father's coal empire a thousandfold by making long-term investments in automation. Koch is a vocal proponent of patience and long-term thinking, and is openly contemptuous of publicly traded companies because of the pressure from shareholders to give preference to short-term extraction over long-term planning. He's got a point.

Koch isn't just a fossil fuel baron, he's also a wildly successful ideologue. Koch is one of a handful of oligarchs who have transformed American politics by patiently investing in a kraken's worth of think tanks, universities, PACs, astroturf organizations, Star chambers and other world-girding tentacles. After decades of gerrymandering, voter suppression, court-packing and propagandizing, the American billionaire class has seized control of the US and its institutions. Patience pays!

But Koch's longtermism is highly selective. Arguably, Charles Koch bears more personal responsibility for delaying action on the climate emergency than any other person, alive or dead. Addressing greenhouse gasses is the most grasshopper-and-the-ant-ass crisis of all. Every day we delayed doing something about this foreseeable, well-understood climate debt added sky-high compounding interest. In failing to act, we saved billions – but we stuck our future selves with trillions in debt for which no bankruptcy procedure exists.

By convincing us not to invest in retooling for renewables in order to make his billions, Koch was committing the sin of premature avocado toast, times a billion. His inability to defer gratification – which he imposed on the rest of us – means that we are likely to lose much of world's coastal cities (including the state of Florida), and will have to find trillions to cope with wildfires, zoonotic plagues, and hundreds of millions of climate refugees.

Koch isn't a serene Buddha whose ability to surf over his impetuous attachments qualifies him to make decisions for the rest of us. Rather, he – like everyone else – is a flawed vessel whose blind spots are just as stubborn as ours. But unlike a person whose lack of foresight leads to drug addiction and petty crimes to support their habit, Koch's flaws don't just hurt a few people, they hurt our entire species and the only planet that can support it.

The selective marshmallow patience of the rich creates problems beyond climate debt. Koch and his fellow oligarchs are, first and foremost, supporters of oligarchy, an intrinsically destabilizing political arrangement that actually threatens their fortunes. Policies that favor the wealthy are always seeking an equilibrium between instability and inequality: a rich person can either submit to having their money taxed away to build hospitals, roads and schools, or they can invest in building high walls and paying guards to keep the rest of us from building guillotines on their lawns.

Rich people gobble that marshmallow like there's no tomorrow (literally). They always overestimate how much bang they'll get for their guard-labor buck, and underestimate how determined the poors will get after watching their children die of starvation and preventable diseases.

All of us benefit from some kind of cushion from our bad judgment, but not too much. The problem isn't that wealthy people get to make a few poor choices without suffering brutal consequences – it's that they hoard this benefit. Most of us are one missed student debt payment away from penalties and interest that add twenty years to our loan, while Charles Koch can set the planet on fire and continue to act as though he was born with the special judgment that means he knows what's best for us.

On SEPTEMBER 24th, I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/04/deferred-gratification/#selective-foresight

Image: Mark S (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/markoz46/4864682934/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[starcrossed591]

I'm kind of obsessed with how intentional and specific Flourished Peony is being about how sexism is not just a matter of individuals being shitty, but a matter of systemic inequality. (They're also being really fucking clear that classism and other elements of the social hierarchy compound it, but that's another post.)

First, take how difficult it was for Mu Dan to get a divorce (and she still doesn't have the paperwork, which I'm *sure* is going to come back to bite her in the ass!). In her attempts to leave the Liu family, she's up not just against her terrible in laws and trash husband, but an intertwined legal and social system that works against her being able to get out alive, much less with any sort of means to support herself. In order to get the local court to approve her divorce, she not only has to prove that her husband has beaten her (and also make it look like the physical abuse she endured is much worse than it was because spousal rape I'm sure would not be acknowledged as a crime), have her body examined in public in order to prove the beating is real--and because that's not actually enough to guarantee her escape, arrange for a higher ranking official on her side and a paid audience to be there for her hearing in order to make sure the judge doesn't sweep it all under the rug. Even with all that on her side, the Judge even tries to justify kicking her out of the Liu family, leaving her dowry behind, because she has not yet born a child and therefore must be at fault for the problems in her relationship.

And *then* even though she gets her divorce papers, her (terrible, no good, piece of garbage) father-in-law sends his servant to murder her so he can keep her dowry. They've already coerced her into giving up a significant portion of that dowry, and sold other parts of it without her consent. Her father-in-law burns her divorce decree, and she has to run for her life with only a potted plant to her name. She then stages her death because she discovers she can't actually go home. Using a combo of social conventions, legal conventions, and rank, the Liu family has convinced her family that Mudan is at fault for all the trouble and as such, they would immediately send her back if she goes home for help.

And then ass if *that* wasn't enough, once Mu Dan makes it to the capital, she can't get a dang job to support herself because she doesn't have a household registration because she wasn't able to get properly divorced! And not having the proper paperwork once again makes her vulnerable to further abuse and gender based violence. She takes a job working in a tavern for 30% of what she deserves for her labor and on top of that, is then nearly sexually assaulted and forced to become the tavern owner's concubine. And even though she manages to escape, she can't hold the tavern owner responsible for beating, abduction, and attempted murder because she can't take him to court because she still *does not have the right paperwork*.

Now, a lot of people acted terribly in this sequence of events, including but not limited to: the Liu family, especially Mu Dan's father-in-law; Mu Dan's trash husband, who has treated her like something he found on the bottom of his shoe for the entirety of their marriage and now only wants to keep her because she wants to leave; the Liu family's servants, who, admittedly, don't have much recourse of their own; the judge; and the tavern owner. Murder attempt and outright abuse aside, though, there were a lot of good people who maybe even *wanted* to help Mu Dan and either couldn't or chose not to because of a combination of legal restrictions and social conventions.

Perhaps the most potent example of well-meaning people using the law and social conventions to justify their perpetuation of this system is Mu Dan's cousin, the imperial scholar. Though he does intervene to save her when she runs bang into him when running for her life from the tavern owner, what he absolutely won't do is help her get a fake household registration. Without that registration, she can't get a job and would have to fully depend on his support for food, clothing, and shelter. And hanging over his offer to house her is the threat that if her in laws find out that she's there--which they eventually would--her law-abiding cousin would almost certainly feel obliged to send her back to said in laws that want to kill her. Because legally, they have a right to do with her what they want. Because she's a woman. Who can't seem to get a divorce.

Anyway, I can't stop thinking about it, so there you go, there's my gender analysis of the first seven episodes of this drama.

[baelonthebrave]

‘reform got as many MPs as the greens why are they getting so much coverage’ bc they were the third most voted-for party after labour and the conservatives! the only thing keeping reform out in the cold right now is the first past the post system. reform candidates are racist, bigoted scum, yes, but many of their VOTERS tend to be disenfranchised working class people who have been convinced that immigration and identity politics are the root source of their problems. these are people who have been consistently let down and shut out since long before david cameron or even tony blair set foot in downing street. generations of poverty and pain and systemic inequality compounding and being capitalised on by scum like farage and rupert murdoch’s press who use some carefully chosen words to stoke fear of the ‘other’ so they can feed their egos and their wallets. britain’s problem is a CLASS problem at its core and the longer the left keeps ignoring that fact, the more we push the people most at risk towards extremist bullshit like this. reform UK is akin to a cult that preys on the vulnerable and the isolated. the solution is to make these people less vulnerable and less isolated.

[hellyeahscarleteen]

"I don’t know if you can objectively say who purity culture hurts “the most,” especially given the severity of it can vary so greatly by family and by faith community. I think it’s possible to identify compounding factors that can increase trauma, though — such as growing up in purity culture as a woman, a queer person, a person of color, a person with a disability, etc. For example, the reality is that purity culture was created to protect white womanhood and white reproductivity, so especially when it comes to instances of sexual abuse, women of color are abused at a higher rate, but believed less often. They’re also often sexualized in a way that white women are not. Purity culture compounds and validates these inequities. Queer people, men and women and non-binary individuals, are often completely erased from the purity culture narrative, relegated to an appendix about changing your sexuality at the end of the most popular dating books if mentioned at all.

People often ask about whether purity culture hurts men, too. I believe it does. I have a lot of male friends who grew up in purity culture and have struggled to have healthy relationships because the ways that they were taught men were “supposed to be” in romantic relationships with women were so dysfunctional and unnatural. They also believed they were monsters for having normal sexual urges or looking at porn, which is really sad. I think different people are hurt differently, but unlearning the negative messages you received, whatever they happen to be, is extremely important work no matter what."

From Welcome to Impurity Culture: Emily Joy and Hannah Boning on Sex and Relationships Education for Evangelicals and Exvangelicals

[math-journal2]

Unit 2: Inequalites

Tips

Absolute Value

More Examples

Compound Absolute Value

<— Page 4 —>

[horizon-verizon]

Setting aside that economies aren’t like CD’s and you can’t just exchange them overnight, how would Daenerys have abolished slavery and immediately “replaced the economy” ?

It took the United States decades of abolitionism and an entire civil war to end slavery; it took another 100 years to take on post Reconstruction racism. The consequences of slavery, Jim Crow, and discriminatory policies didn’t vanish overnight because the laws that sustained segregation were repealed, they created generational wealth gaps, entrenched segregation, and systemic barriers. Redlining wasn’t officially outlawed until the late 1960s, yet its impact still defines housing, education, and economic inequality. Pretending these lasting effects don’t exist is either ignorant or willfully blind.

From 1789 to 1871, France have experienced a succession of short-lived regimes and witnessed a tumultuous eight decades that saw the initial constitutional monarchy replaced by a republic in 1792, only for the republic to succumb to terror to see off internal and external enemies and lose all legitimacy in a mere seven years to be toppled by its most popular general, Napoleon Bonaparte. To sum things up, in 82 years, France went through three monarchies, two empires, and two republics, the French people witnessing the fall of seven different political regimes, with a eighth, the Third Republic, being in place since the fall of Napoleon III.

History does not know just one direction, but many setbacks and cyclical motions. Leadership often works the same way. Major successes and breakthroughs rarely happen overnight. Instead, they emerge from countless small actions — strategic decisions, cultural shifts, and unglamorous (sometimes even boring) persistence — that compound over time. It makes Daenerys’ struggle to change things for the better feel a lot more realistic.

Honestly, I've wondered and I don't know. I don't want to think that it could turn out to be disappointing, how it's handled, but....

[maybe-boys-do-love]

So I shared, the Spanish-language horror visual references in this week’s Peaceful Property episode (which are great ghost story films for comparison in thematic elements, as well). The death this week, though, is yet another ghost story reference, this time in an English-language series with lots of commentary on class and the racial and gender politics of domestic work, The Haunting of Bly Manor.

🚨spoilers for both series from here on🚨

In Bly Manor, Hannah Grose, the estate’s maid is revealed late in the series to be a ghost, who had fallen into a well on the grounds. Although the series is based off Henry James’s Turn of the Screw and its celebrated film adaptation The Innocents from the 1960s and its celebrated 2000s remake The Others* with Nicole Kidman (in which the twist from the previous is that the governess main character is revealed to be dead), Hannah Grose’s death is a new addition in the Netflix series. It compounds the complex themes about class and domestic servitude in the original British story and adds issues of race to the proceedings.

Peaceful Property uses Baanchuen’s story for similar purposes. Migrant domestic work is an important issue in Southeast Asia. The International Labor Organization put out a report last year stating, “29 per cent of surveyed migrant domestic workers in Malaysia were in conditions meeting the ILO’s statistical definition of forced labour; as were 7 per cent of surveyed workers in Singapore and 4 per cent in Thailand. Indicators of involuntariness include not being able to quit your job, having to stay in the job longer than agreed, and being made to work without overtime pay, among others.” Shackles, like those on Baanchuen’s ghost, are an easily recognizable symbol of enslavement, indicating the extent of Aunt Phom’s cruelty.

But even under legal circumstances, domestic workers are one of the least protected group of laborers in Thailand and abroad. Taiwanese-American labor organizer, MacArthur “genius” grant recipient, and mentor/friend to BLM cofounder Alicia Garza, Ai-Jen Poo has a fantastic interview on On Being, in which she discusses the racialized, gendered, international, and cross-class dynamics that define domestic care work, which impacts the strategies to organizing for workers rights in the field.

“The average annual income for a home care worker [presumably in the US at the time of recording in 2020] is $15,000 per year. And I can’t think of any community that I’ve ever lived in where you can survive on $15,000 a year. It’s really quite extraordinary. And they’re there and see employers come home with a pair of shoes that are maybe more than they make in a week, and yet, their job is to care and support and love, and they do so. You can’t actually do your job as a caregiver if you dehumanize the person that is in your charge. And I think that that is so much of what’s needed in this moment. All of us need to understand that we have a profound set of challenges and inequities that we have to deal with and transform, but we have to do it with a boundless sense of compassion and humanity.”

I’d encourage some of my fellow watchers of Peaceful Property to heed Poo’s perspective on disrupting class distinctions and what the advocacy for equitable practices has looked like in her work. I’m a caseworker myself and have worked alongside people who had less privilege than me for caring wealthy people who never the less didn’t always recognize the value of those whose work they depended on and didn’t have the labor laws that might provide that guidance. There are a few pieces of work that explore this meaningfully (better than The Help, although Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer absolutely carved out depths in their characters stories that weren’t there on the page). Glad to see Peaceful Property making its attempt to explore these depths. It actually made me reflect on how many of the jobs after the first episode really focused on gendered aspects of labor—a wig-maker, assistants, food-making…

And for my Homepeach truthers out there, that gender conversation is not just about labor. Bly Manor is also notable for its queer romance storyline with a wealthier character running from her internalized homophobia/guilt after a car accident…

*Incidentally, The Others is also heavily influenced by the same Spanish film, The Spirit of the Beehive, as both referenced Spanish-language horror films in these weeks episode.

[earlgreytea68]

I listened to this podcast episode today on my way to work and it was very interesting. You should listen to her, because I am no economist, but the tl;dr is that the main reason the gender pay gap exists is because women often choose jobs for their greater flexibility because they often have caregiving responsibilities (either with children or with their own parents, because that also falls disproportionately on women) and so they value the flexibility more than men do, who can select jobs based on things like pay, not flexibility. That is simplified but basically the issue, and then there are all kinds of repercussions around that, like, people who value work flexibility so that they can tend to other responsibilities tend to be perceived as not dedicated enough to their jobs, so they don't get the most important assignments, don't get the most important promotions, etc.

Anyway, I was struck by the fact that toward the end the host asks the Nobel laureate what can be done to address this ongoing inequity, and she proposes sending children to school year-round and until 6pm every day.

......

Okay, look, #1 - I COMPLETELY understand, which is the Nobel laureate's point, that finding that childcare to fill in the gap around when school is out of session but the mom is still at work is a major problem that is part of the reason why women desire more flexibility; and also #2 - I also do not intend this to be about educational theory, but----

I was really struck that the solution to the problem would be TO MAKE CHILDREN WORK JUST AS HARD AS GROWN-UPS. Like, I can't help but think that the REAL problem here is that the expectations of jobs for the level of dedication they want from employees is UNREALISTIC AND UNSUSTAINABLE and can only be supported if one-half of the workforce is abandoned to DO THE ACTUAL WORK OF BEING HUMAN, and the solution to that is not MAKE EVEN THE TINIEST OF HUMANS LEARN HOW TO WORK HARDER AND LONGER. Idk, that just really rubbed me the wrong way, the idea that we solve this problem we created by making kids work forty-hour work weeks with no vacations the way the rest of us do. Like, the problem is the forty-hour work week with no vacations, let's not compound that problem.

To be fair to the Nobel laureate, she says she's trying to find a realistic solution, and that overhauling societal expectations around caregiving responsibilities and flexible workers is probably not going to happen but she thinks expanding the school day and year is attainable. But.....no, I think we should work on overhauling societal expectations so that none of us are expected to work so much at the sacrifice of the rest of our lives. Idk, I don't think we should entertain any solution other than that, because I'm tired of giving in on that point.

END RANT OF A THING I KNOW BASICALLY NOTHING ABOUT

[comradekite]

Harnessing the Fury: Finding Power in Collective Action

Friends, colleagues, fellow humans. Have you ever felt that? That overwhelming surge of anger, sadness, frustration – a destructive energy that seems to have nowhere to go? A feeling so potent it threatens to consume you? I have. The words I’m about to share come from a place of deep pain, a pain shared by many, especially those facing systemic injustices and the crushing weight of disability. But this pain, this righteous anger, is not a weakness. It is a source of power, a catalyst for change. We are not adrift; we are rising.

The raw emotion you just heard – that feeling of wanting to shatter the systems that oppress us – is understandable. It’s a response to the overwhelming inequality, the systemic marginalization, the casual cruelty woven into the fabric of our society. For those with disabilities, these challenges are often compounded, leading to feelings of powerlessness and isolation. We are told to be grateful for small things, to accept our fate. But we are more than cogs in a machine; we are vibrant individuals with unique perspectives and contributions. This system, this "genocidal machine" of capitalism, as one might call it, silences our voices, ignores our needs, and exploits our vulnerabilities. It's a system designed by the privileged, for the privileged, and maintained through apathy and willful ignorance. But let's be clear: Violence is not the answer. The desire for retribution, for the powerful to be brought low, is understandable. However, true power lies not in destruction, but in creation. In building a system that prioritizes diversity, equity, and inclusion. The righteous fury we feel must be channeled, transformed into a force for positive change. We are not powerless. We possess immense collective power. Our shared experiences, our unique perspectives, our resilience in the face of adversity – these are our greatest strengths. The feeling of being unmoored, adrift, is not unique. We're all struggling, in different ways. 

 So, how do we harness this energy? How do we move from rage to revolution? Here are concrete, actionable steps we can take, mindful of the diverse needs and abilities of our community:

 1. **Accessibility First:** Any movement for change must prioritize accessibility. Our organizing efforts must be inclusive, ensuring all voices are heard and all needs are met. This means:

 * Providing accessible meeting spaces, both physical and virtual. 

* Offering materials in multiple formats (e.g., large print, audio, Braille). 

* Utilizing communication tools that accommodate diverse communication styles.

2. **Build Community:** Meet your Neighbors. Connect with others who share your passion for change. Join existing organizations, or create your own. Support each other, share your stories, and build a strong network of support. This might involve: 

* Joining or starting online forums or support groups focused on social justice and disability rights.

 * Participating in local protests or demonstrations, adapted for accessibility.

 * Organizing community events focused on education and empowerment.

 3. **Amplify Marginalized Voices:** Ensure the voices of those most marginalized are heard. Create platforms for them to share their stories and experiences. Support their advocacy efforts. This could involve:

 * Highlighting and sharing the work of disability rights activists on social media.

 * Donating to or volunteering with organizations that champion disability rights.

 * Contacting your elected officials to advocate for policies that benefit people with disabilities.

 4. **Educate and Advocate:** Learn about the systemic issues that contribute to injustice and inequality. Educate yourself and others about disability rights and intersectionality. Use your voice to advocate for change. This includes:

 * Researching the history of disability rights and the ongoing struggles faced by marginalized communities.

 * Participating in workshops and trainings on advocacy and activism.

 * Contacting your elected officials to demand systemic change. The path to change is not easy, but it is not impossible. By working together, by harnessing our collective power, we can build a more just and equitable world. Let's transform our anger into action. Let's build a world where everyone, regardless of ability, has a seat at the table. Let the revolution begin, accessibly and inclusively.

[cyle]

As Kwan first explained, modern capitalism only worked because we compelled people to work, rather than forced them to do so.

“…We had to change the story we told ourselves and say that ‘your value is your job,” he told the audience. “You are only worth what you can do, and we are no longer beings with an inherent worth. And this is why it’s so hard to find fulfillment in this current system. The system works best when you’re not fulfilled,” he said, then pausing. “Which brings me back to AI,” Kwan continued, to a thunder of applause and cheers.

“It’s magic,” he said. “It’s probably going to solve cancer. It’s probably going to give us a lot of climate solutions. This is a powerful thing,” Kwan continued. “But I’m really terrified of what this new story we’re going to have to tell ourselves in order to accept this new convenience, this new progress. It’s terrifying,” he added, as a single solitary voice cheered in the now otherwise quiet crowd.

“So imagine what this technology will do within this current system, within this current incentive structure. This is the same system that brought us climate change, income inequality, and the general lack of gratitude and understanding of our worth and the worth of those around us,” Kwan said.

Plus, he noted, if you are feeling anxious about AI, it’s probably because, deep down, you know you’re next. “Even if the jobs aren’t going to be lost, the value of the job will go down, right?… It will slowly be compounded and normalized until we don’t even realize it,” he said.