omg the Protocol was the reason the Magnus Institute burned down
We know that the Protocol is destructive, as the letter said it would destroy Newton's laboratory, so I think it's a fire
The letter was written in 1684, which is only 18 years after the Great Fire of London (1666), which I think they were referring to when they said they had to use the Protocol on the whole city
edit: just found out that historically Newton’s lab did actually burn down so that’s more evidence
edit 2: the letter mentioned an "awful plague" before the Protocol was activated on London, which was probably the Great Plague of London in 1665-1666 (last major bubonic plague epidemic), which the fire actually helped to stop
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Genuinely, the reason why so many discussions about transgenderism end up the way they do (in addition to the overt transmisogyny) is a complete unwillingness to view gender (and sexuality) as political categories, instead viewing them exclusively through the lens of "personal identity"
"Why do people use agab/tma? Is not the point of being trans to escape the shackles of your agab?" I cannot stress this enough but I am not the one doing the shackling, society has invented the shackles and I am using language to describe them and how they affect me
In a hypothetical future situation where society is no longer (trans)misogynistic and the patriarchy has been fully dismantled, these terms will have no real use. But it's important to recognize what is current actual material reality and what is simply idealism and hypotheticals
I would love to live in a world where tma vs tme is not a meaningful distinction. But that world doesn't exist (and also you are not helping make it so it does), and so those terms remain useful
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People ask me sometimes how I'm so confident that we can beat climate change.
There are a lot of reasons, but here's a major one: it would take a really, really long time for Earth to genuinely become uninhabitable for humans.
Humans have, throughout history, carved out a living for themselves in some of the most harsh, uninhabitable corners of the world. The Arctic Circle. The Sahara. The peaks of the Himalayas. The densest, most tropical regions of the Amazon Rainforest. The Australian Outback. etc. etc.
Frankly, if there had been a land bridge to Antarctica, I'm pretty sure we would have been living there for thousands of years, too. And in fact, there are humans living in Antarctica now, albeit not permanently.
And now, we're not even facing down apocalypse, anymore. Here's a 2022 quote from the author of The Uninhabitable Earth, David Wallace-Wells, a leader on climate change and the furthest thing from a climate optimist:
"The most terrifying predictions [have been] made improbable by decarbonization and the most hopeful ones practically foreclosed by tragic delay. The window of possible climate futures is narrowing, and as a result, we are getting a clearer sense of what’s to come: a new world, full of disruption but also billions of people, well past climate normal and yet mercifully short of true climate apocalypse.
Over the last several months, I’ve had dozens of conversations — with climate scientists and economists and policymakers, advocates and activists and novelists and philosophers — about that new world and the ways we might conceptualize it. Perhaps the most capacious and galvanizing account is one I heard from Kate Marvel of NASA, a lead chapter author on the fifth National Climate Assessment: “The world will be what we make it.”"
-David Wallace-Wells for the New York Times, October 26, 2022
If we can adapt to some of the harshest climates on the planet - if we could adapt to them thousands of years ago, without any hint of modern technology - then I have every faith that we can adjust to the world that is coming.
What matters now is how fast we can change, because there is a wide, wide gap between "climate apocalypse" and "no harm done." We've already passed no harm done; the climate disasters are here, and they've been here. People have died from climate disasters already, especially in the Global South, and that will keep happening.
But as long as we stay alive - as long as we keep each other alive - we will have centuries to fix the effects of climate change, as much as we possibly can.
And looking at how far we've come in the past two decades alone - in the past five years alone - I genuinely think it is inevitable that we will overcome climate change.
So, we're going to survive climate change, as a species.
What matters now is making sure that every possible individual human survives climate change as well.
What matters now is cutting emissions and reinventing the world as quickly as we possibly can.
What matters now is saving every life and livelihood and way of life that we possibly can.
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