#it’s like the most centrist libertarian thing

[imsosocold]

WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT OI OI OI HOLD UP A SWEET FUCKING HOT POCKET SECOND. King’s father’s whole “oh Belos is just evil and has always been ig” shtick. Isn’t that logic the same as BELOS’S?!! That’s why he does everything? Cause he thinks witches and demons are the creations of Satan (or something like that ig who needs properly explained motivations in fiction anyway)? And that by their mere existences witches and demons cause misery and suffering? And that the only way humanity can be safe and freed from their potential influence is through all their collective deaths?!! DANA AND CO YOU HAVE TO BE SHITTING ME-

[wanderingtycho]

By far one of my favorite things about the way Disco Elysium handles politics is that Libertarianism is treated as an absolute joke. Like the game is obviously sympathetic towards communists, but there are elements of sympathy towards the moralists and fascists as well. Not sympathy in the sense of “oh can’t we all just get along, we’re all human” BS, but sympathy in the sense that you are able to understand a persons thought process that would lead them to embrace moralism or fascism. Even if that thought process is deeply flawed, and leads to horribly off kilter conclusions, going through the centrist and fash quests gives you meaningful insight into the appeal of those ideologies.

But Ultraliberalism? The game just laughs at you, repeatedly and mercilessly. As it should, you’re a cop so poor a guy you’ve known for one day has to pawn some fancy hubcaps so you can afford rent, yet all you talk about is your grindset. Your hustle, how you’re gonna disrupt the market and groove your way into the lap of luxury. It’s delusion, utter stark raving madness, and characters treat you as such.

Kim is at a loss for words whenever you crank on your libertarian spiel, Evrart calls you a retard, you have to *trick* the mega-rich light bending guy into giving you mercury mining stocks because he’s simply too perplexed by you. Joyce, last of the self identified Ultras, doesn’t take you seriously. Sileng just goes along with it the same way he goes along with any of the other nonsense you can spout, because he’s on his own hustle, and there is no loyalty among charlatans. The only character who is wholeheartedly onboard with the money engineering and the visionary wave making lifestyle is literally named IDIOT DOOM SPIRAL.

But you see, all these things are just incidental, where the game makes it most potent jab at libertarians is when the vision quest stops. Notice I said *stop* not *end*. The communist quest line ends with a Rhetoric check in order to ask The Most Important Question about Communism. The fascist quest has you look yourself in the eye with an Endurance check to see if you can stomach the truth about yourself and your Vöws. The moralist quest ends with a heart wrenching Empathy check as you beg the iron grey and soulless enforcers of the status quo to please god help this district before war breaks out in the streets. There’s real personal stakes for Harry in all these disparate paths he can walk, what does Ultraliberalism get?

You and Kim look at a statue covered in tinsel and disco balls, Kim asks you why you went through with all this, and no matter what response you pick he’s like “Right, yeah, okay. Anyway, let’s finish the case.”

That’s it, no grand moment of pathos, no red Savoir Faire skill check to see if you really are the baddest hustler in the neoliberal hood after all. It’s completely limp, flaccid, lackluster. The game treats all the effort you put into this as exactly what it is: sad, cringe fantasies of a poor old man who’s huffing copium over the embarrassed millionaire mythos.

Disco Elysium doesn’t give libertarianism a poignant, profound conclusion because it’s an ideology undeserving of such treatment. It’s a hyper-capitalist cult mentality of toxic positivity and confirmation bias, a way for desperate people to trick themselves and other chumps into thinking they can bootstrap their way into wealth and prestige. It goes past wishful thinking into pure delirium, the game doesn’t engage with it seriously because it doesn’t have to, the only people who sincerely believe any of its tenants are morons and the clowns who sucker them.

[decolonize-the-left]

Lol. lmao even.

Thank you so much for proving my point.

Like forgive my "holier than thou" and "fake leftist" attitude about it but I think if you want change you have to take risks, risks that upset the status quo. Like voting 3rd party, especially when nobody (including historically blue labor unions and states) wants Biden to be president.

If there's a chance to change things for the better then leftists and progressives take that opportunity. Every time. If you don't take that opportunity then you aren't even a progressive, let alone a leftist ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Conservatives are called conservatives cuz they don't want things to change. You know why? Progress always threatens privilege and their privilege is something conservatives care about maintaining. "Things are fine the way they are, not perfect but be reasonable."

Also since you asked about my praxis; The last 4 years I have: protested/taken tear gas to the face across the entire PNW, organized for BLM, helped create a police alternative in my area so people don't have to call the cops, built mutual aid networks that cross state borders, and then I caught COVID the first time. At which point I became too disabled to keep doing the same level of praxis. So then I spent a Lot of time at the doctor trying to get my new COVID-caused chronic illnesses diagnosed. I couldn't handle activity like that anymore so I shifted gears to accommodate my body. I changed my passively political Tumblr to be my main source of outreach for radicalizing that would double as a political resource for leftist newbies.

Additionally, I've posted about this before and even showed y'all my ballot but I live in Nazi Territory. There is nobody who runs for any office here that isn't a Republican or libertarian and most of the time they're unopposed, too. I regularly don't vote because I don't have anyone to vote for, let alone have a 3rd party candidate to support.

"decolonize your own nationality privilege"

I'm literally Ojibwe, first off. Secondly, you think decolonizing the USA looks like re-electing a colonizer actively commiting genocide? l m a o

Like I said....people like this are closer to being conservative centrists than any kind of leftist. There's No Way someone who supports liberty and self determination would vote for Biden when there are other options ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and if I did NOT call out this clearly co-optive behavior then I would Not be decolonize the left.

Centrists and conservatives will not be allowed to water down leftist beliefs as long as this blog is here.

I literally came here to be holier than thou and judgey and to hold leftists to a higher standard after I shared so many online spaces with leftists who did Not support Landback, hated IDPOL, and thought class reductionism would lead to a revolution.

So if my posts strike a nerve: good, tbh

Ps;

"real leftism is when you vote for capitalist genocidal Democrats to maintain the peaceful status quo and if you disagree you're a privileged liberal" and "how come you as a famous Tumblr blogger haven't materially affected our elections the last 4 years???" are takes I'd be embarrassed to say out loud so I've hidden your URL, lmfaoooooo

Pps:

You could open any of the books I've suggested on race or colonialism or imperialism or native history :) or join one of the unions I've posted about. Watch one of the videos about building mutual aid networks. You could even learn about presidential candidates on my page. And if you think you can do a better job than me then do it. I'm literally begging.

Or yeah, I guess you could keep doing whatever this is *gestures to the post* instead.

That's obviously very useful.

[transmutationisms]

why do you think the sibs are all on different parts of the political spectrum when they grew up mostly the same? as billionaires it's kind of expected that they'd all be (at best) moderately conservative, so it's interesting that shiv is very left-leaning, kendall is kind of a centrist, roman just goes with whatever his dad wants, and connor is an independent, if not libertarian.

shiv is the most interesting to me, since I feel like, along with the rest of her family, she easily has the privilege of politics not meaning anything to her, she's just above that, yet she has made a career of it. I want to say she's the best of them, since left-leaning policies are just generally better for people, yet her response to the cruises thing and how easily she sucked-up to mencken just confuses me.

i've written more about this in my succession politics tag, which i'll stick this post into, but shiv is not left-leaning. she's a democrat, a centre-right party. that the rest of her family thinks her politics are unlike theirs says more about these people's limited worldviews than it does about her actual political positions, and her politics are not beneficial for workers in america, anyone in the countries her father / waystar meddle with politically, or even, like, most white american women. at the end of the day, yes, she wouldn't do everything she could to stop mencken because doing that would have been counter to her personal professional interests—same as the rest of her family, that's her priority when it comes down to it. with cruises, she sympathises with the victims, but again isn't going to prioritise them over her personal interests with the company / logan, and her attempted threesome with the yacht employee also shows how she ultimately also views workers as lesser-than and uses her structural position to exploit them, including a willingness to do so sexually—again, like the rest of her family.

the siblings' specific ideologies do tell us a lot about them psychologically, ie shiv's belief in abstract equality, personal merit, and an us–them paranoia telegraphed by her hygiene fixation; roman's eroticisation of masculinity and father figures; kendall being ideologically flexible in much the same way capital itself is; connor's view of reproduction / productivity and his semantic conflation of sperm and money. so like, i'm not saying there are no distinctions and i actually do think this writing is pretty nuanced. but the show is also quite clear about the fact that these characters are all capitalists, none of them are challenging the reigning political ontology, and their ideological disagreements are not in contradiction to that at all.

[nonegenderleftpain]

Just had the most fucking infuriating conversation. My lovely partner was dealing with their shithead centrist roommate and his opinions on trans people in prisons and I was like hey, send him to me! I do trans education with guys like this professionally, and that way maybe you won't have to deal with his shit without adding more tension to your household. So we connected, and I set a boundary: I was upfront about being bipolar, because it affects how I communicate and how my emotions react to things, and I said that I needed him to trust that I and *only I* knew when I was being "too emotional" to talk rationally. I told him that I did not consent to anyone except my physicians commenting on my mental state, and that I have dealt with my particular cocktail of mental illness for years while he has not. I gave him a yes or no question - can I trust that you will not use my disability to undermine my professional knowledge about trans issues?

I sat and watched him go off about how he's getting a PhD in clinical psychology, and how dare I presume he doesn't know things about bipolar disorder, and on and on. I asked him if he had bipolar, and told him again that if not, I do not consent to discussing it with him except to get his agreement that he will not use it to belittle me. He then proceeded to state that unless my physicians also have bipolar, then it's a completely unfair question, etc etc. I repeated the question, clarifying that this was a yes or no.

I got ANOTHER paragraph of going off about how the way I set my boundaries was rude and inappropriate and he doesn't respect the way I said it, etc etc. I gave him one last chance to answer my yes or no question - a chance that he failed, when he proceeded to tell me that I was using my disability as an excuse (an excuse for what, he never answered when I asked), and that I had "blinders on about my own behavior."

I clarified what happened - that I gave him three chances to answer a yes or no question guaranteeing he would not use my disability as an excuse to brush aside my years of knowledge on trans issues because I might get emotional, and he chose three times not to answer. After which he blocked me.

Now, if you are a minority educator, you may have caught what I did here, but maybe not, so I'm going to explain. When this man said he had "concerns" about trans people in prisons, I decided to test how sincere he was about engaging with me as a minority. I set a reasonable boundary in a polite but no-nonsense way about an axis of discrimination that had *nothing to do* with the thing we intended to discuss. To be fair, I was trying to give the guy some warning about my emotional regulation problems and how they affect response times, but really, I was testing how he would respond to being told no. I chose to be mildly vulnerable about an axis of oppression that is under legal protections, in order to both protect myself and to test his responses. If he could not respond appropriately, and with some level of consideration, to a request about an axis of oppression that he cannot deny exists, he could not be trusted to engage with me on an axis he sees as debatable.

Do not give people your heart to get them to respect you. If they cannot respect your "no" with something objective and concrete and communicate clearly, they will not respect your "no" when it is hurting you. And remember that you NEVER owe people like this your time and energy. Never. It doesn't matter who they are. I chose to step into this conversation knowing it was unlikely to go well, because I am an educator. You do not have to be an educator just because you are a minority. If you're Just Some Guy, it's not your job to listen to people shit on you or use this libertarian-ass centrist doublespeak to avoid answering simple questions like "can I trust that you will not discriminate against me if we talk." Just tell them to fuck off and you will be so much better for it.

(And on another note, for his patient's sake, I hope this man fails med school. Someone like that is not ready to interact with vulnerable groups, and I told him as much before he ran like a coward from having to admit that no, he WAS going to use my disability to undermine me if it was useful for him to.)

[nokingsonlyfooles]

The Dark Secret of Zootopia? (Part 1, Identifying the Problem)

What? If you're a fan, you already know Zootopia's "secret."

It was originally a dark dystopia where the predators wore "tame collars," but the Zootopia team got nervous about how depressing it was and did a last-minute rewrite that used most of the old assets and plot points! Right? So are we gonna do a deep dive on that?

Not quite.

What if I told you that despite the rewrite that took out the obvious metaphor for systemic oppression, more evidence of systemic issues remains and... it probably doesn't make any difference?

So that half-assed poll I put up suggests more than one person would like to see me take Zootopia apart, and that probably means delving into the racism metaphor, but, man, I don't have the headspace for that today! So I took a spin through the Headscratchers page, hoping to find something a little more compact. There had to be something other than the racism metaphor that a lot of people had trouble with, right? Sort of an appetizer for a busy Tuesday?

Nnnot really.

Here's an obvious Libertarian voter who can't fathom that people would be racist when it runs contrary to good business practices! We go through quite a few tropers positing non-racist or less racist reasons to refuse Nick service - including one who believes prejudice against predators "wasn't a thing" until Judy's press conference, and before that people just didn't like foxes - before some hero arrives with a fire extinguisher and says, I'm paraphrasing, "Racism isn't rational! End of story!"

Then we got this question, which has the answer contained in it already!

I've trimmed the first response, from someone who apparently sees nothing wrong with just rolling up and asking to pet a sentient being. "It doesn't have to be a metaphor for anything"!? They go on to posit that maybe it's a taboo in funny animal society. 'Cos, you know, you don't have to read Zootopia as a metaphor for human society if you don't wanna.

(The Author! He's already dead! Why you gotta desecrate the corpse like that?)

It takes a few more self-soothing responses from evident people-petters before, again, someone rolls up and says, "It is exactly white people wanting to 'pet' black people's 'weird' hair, something that is unfortunately a fairly common patronizing occurrence in the U.S., at least."

And after that, we still get this:

"I have a Black friend and he lets me pet him all the time! Cut white people some slack! They're just curious! Let us pet you!"

Zootopia is racism lite, folks. Zootopia calls out racism primarily as something an individual does when they make decisions based on their preexisting biases - which, in Nick and Judy's cases, stem from childhood traumas that we get to see on-screen.

This is a version of racism that a child - with a little hand-holding from a caregiver - could understand. All but the most toxic conservatives ought to be okay explaining this kind of racism, including the toxic neoliberal centrists! "You see, little Kayden, there is no such thing as 'society.' 'Racism' is what happens when a lot of individuals make bad decisions. All you have to do to stop it is make better decisions, and encourage others to make better decisions too! Why, when I was your age, we chose better hairsprays without CFCs in them, and that fixed global warming and the hole in the ozone layer forever!"

"Auntie Margaret Thatcher, isn't climate change still a..."

"WE FIXED IT FOREVER, LITTLE KAYDEN." *strained smile* "So just don't buy fox spray! If enough people don't buy it, they'll stop making it."

"Why is it okay for someone to make a spray specifically to hurt foxes in the first place?"

"...If you don't stop asking questions, I shall bury you under the Aberfan coal tip with all the rest, little Kayden. Eat your popcorn."

But even that's too much for some folks! They retreat behind the ambiguity of the metaphor and wonder why the funny animals make such odd decisions, in the willful absence of context. With no context, why would a bunny be able to say, "It's okay if we call each other 'cute,' but you shouldn't." That's blatant hypocrisy. Bunnies don't own "cute." It's just a word!

Don't apologize, Benjamin! Why would you do that?

This entire movie is a modern Aesop fable and you need that human context. "Cute" privilege to "n-word" privilege is a one-to-one correlation, like petting a sheep is to petting a Black person. It only makes sense because you live in human society and you can fill in the blanks - because you have seen similar manifestations of bias and you already know they're not okay. You don't even have to know why or agree. To get the joke, you just have to know this stuff happens and people think it's rude. That is not a high bar to clear!

And that is, apparently, the level of anxiety we have about unpacking our own racism. Not even the systemic kind. Not even the big issues those scary "woke" zombies are trying to "cancel" you about. Just, "An individual - including you, for you are an individual - can make bad decisions based on their experiences."

Whaaaat? No I don't!

"These animals have nothing to do with me and therefore, this movie makes no sense."

These are the people Zootopia needed to reach. Not the ones who already had a clue, the ones who were so scared of getting one that they buried their heads in the sand and refused to acknowledge reality itself. So here's a cheerful little film with an animal metaphor and an optimistic resolution! Surely they must feel safe enough to unpack racism in this context?

But they didn't. Much like Green Book, this film was safe and simple enough to walk away with an Oscar from an Academy that's mostly white, male, and terrified of minorities - and the people who didn't want to get "woke" slept right through it. I don't think that's what they were going for, given that V 1 of this film had systemic oppression worn around the neck of every predator with a blinking light on it.

Remember, they reused assets and plot points from the original and rewrote everything fast. Traces remain. But if the ostriches in the audience can't understand "cute" privileges, do they have any hope of noticing Judy's bathroom at the police academy has a toilet that can kill her and no accommodations for a species her size?

Well, they might have. But the way the film handles it gleefully assassinates everyone's chance to see the systemic issues and respond to them appropriately.

Tune in next time, for Judy Hopps, bunny cops, "Black Excellence" and our old friend Barack!

[smalltittiesbigdreams]

I have watched The Office from start to finish and created a list of what I believe every character’s politics to be, listed in order of who would be most likely to scab.

Disclaimer: I do not think that being a scab or having bad politics makes the character inherently bad, this is just how I think they would act. Also I know I left out some later characters bc I hated seasons 8 and 9, sorry. 

Jan: girlbossy suburban Republican mom vibes, literally union busts the warehouse workers

Todd Packer: alt right

Dwight: right wing authoritarian, believes in weird conspiracy theories, volunteer police officer, always jumps at the opportunity to impress the boss

Angela: conservative Christian, Reagan Republican 

Michael: “fiscally conservative but socially liberal” vibes, probably votes Republican for tax reasons but wants to think he’s unproblematic, reports warehouse workers’ union drive to Jan

Gabe: libertarian with creepy racist/misogynistic vibes

Andy: votes Republican bc his parents do

Kevin: libertarian, would probably do crypto and stan Elon Musk

Ryan: after being fired becomes an internet leftist who reads Marx for clout but would still throw his coworkers under the bus at any moment for his own personal benefit

Karen: ladder climber, girlbossy liberal

Toby: conservative Democrat, would scab bc he works for HR

Holly: center-left Democrat, the type of person who thinks the New York Times is objective

Phyllis: centrist Democrat, NIMBY vibes

Roy: supported unionization as a warehouse worker but becomes conservative after starting his own company

Jim: milquetoast Democrat, more left leaning in the earlier seasons but drifts more centrist as he becomes a homeowner and gets promoted to management positions

Pam: more left than Jim but is afraid of things that veer too far from the mainstream (read: socialism)

Kelly: liberal, gets all her news from social media

Erin: doesn’t pay attention to politics

Creed: participated in 1960′s counterculture but has gone down some sort of weird fringe path

Meredith: the wild card, doesn’t vote bc neither party adequately addresses her needs

Oscar: progressive Democrat with radlib characteristics

Stanley: was a radical when he was younger but has become cynical and resigned to life under capitalism

Darryl: progressive Democrat, wanted to unionize the warehouse workers

[doodoocumfart]

The episodes four and five were rlly weak politically. Amazing character work as always and exploring Joel and Ellie’s relationship so it’s so jarring the show has such black and white centrist takes on politics in the fucking apocolypse?

Kathleen deserved better writing.

I’m sorry but revenge is bad, non violence good. Is not an interesting take. It’s why I didn’t like TLOU2. Kathleen clearly cares abt helping her ppl, that’s WHY she was so motivated for revenge. which means it makes NO sense for her to lie abt the infected underground. Why it makes NO sense for her to kill collaborators who she is AWARE r poor and already gave a better solution for dealing w. Something firm and tough and cruel but understandable in the fear of fascism returning. U could actually have a moral struggle abt if this is better.

INSTEAD. She goes all “KILL THEM ALL” so u can’t even question if she’s morally good or not. They WANT her to be evil so BADLY. A real shame I thought it was going somewhere w the fact Henry was aware he was a terrible person who had commited a genuine wrong against his ppl. One he felt he had to make but was sacrificing more ppl than he was helping.

Again utterly squandered by Kathleen giving the weirdest nonsensical speech abt why Sam needs to die which doesn’t ALIGN AT ALL w being a resistance leader. She lead an uprising against a fascist dictatorship? WHY WHY WHY would she suddenly talk abt resigning urself to fate? U could have her talk abt weather it’s worth saving one kid who could die any moment without going “eh fate IG”. The show is so scared of exploring this. Cuz they want the Joel mirror character of Henry to go as little challenged politically as possible.

A real shame cuz I did like at the end it shows that his attachment to Sam and Sam alone was deeply dangerous and doesn’t foster a healthy mindset. Perhaps this could’ve gone against Kathleen if they actually went w the communal utilitarian view w her and commited.

All in all they should’ve just had Kathleen be a simple done and done fascist or done her better.

I don’t want Joel to becoming morally better. That is NOT his story. I do not want the idea sacrificing for one person is a good thing. The game was good abt keeping that for u to decide. And so far it’s not too bad it was done rlly well w bill being a libertarian nut job and Henry putting all this emotional pressure on a child just scared it’s slowly getting there.

Inshallah it’s not, It’s still a great show. And I believe it’ll be fine for the most part. Just jeez Kathleen was such a waste of potential.

[themountainsays]

The US university stereotype on the right is that its where good Christian kids go and are turned into gay atheist communist and while that is obviously not true we do have a lot leftists in US universities minus the ones made to not be that. I while on the political left but not left wing enough to be a full leftists though I definitely closer to that side than being a centrist but this is more left wing squabbling think that everyone left of center should work to together to beat the far right who seem to fight less than we can squabble on how best to improve the world.

njjffekj the right wing stereotype here is that Uni, uh, should be paid ;-; like c'monnnnn free education is one of the best things about this country why would they ruin our sexiest attribute like that.

I'm beginning to think anticapitalist ideas in university must be an universal thing, almost as if anticapitalists were right 🤔🤔🤔 and I agree, yeah it's great to see the left winning in some countries in the region, like Chile, Bolivia and Colombia, but ngl I'm worried about my country, we don't have a proper left wing movement and I 100% think it's because the socialist and anarchist movements of the 20s simply failed to win over the working class population like peronism did during the 40s and 50s, because peronists actually know (knew) how to stfu sometimes and be ✨ pragmatic ✨ meanwhile the socialists wastime arguing on who has read the most obscure russian philosophers, which they collect like pokemon. Now peronism is falling apart because of inner conflicts, the neoliberals are disillusioned with the current right after the last neoliberal government's failure to do... idk whatever it was that neoliberals want, they fucked over the country but not hard enough, i guess?? So now neoliberals are turning to the libertarians, which are even more ridiculous, I mean, I don't agree with privileging importations over the maintenance of the national industry but I can understand how that's an ideology that exists, I can intellectually comprehend that a serious right wing politician may want to advocate for such economic measures. Meanwhile fucking libertarians are here trying to legalize organ trafficking

[succliberation]

This may be coming out of nowhere, but I'd feel like you'd know best.. how hard is it to find a lesbian thats also a libertarian or somewhere along those lines?? There's so many nb lesbians too and I feel like I'm fishing for the fucking Loch Ness monster. I just need some kind of hope man.

This is my first year going to to pride, and outside of that, I've had no contact with like, irl lesbians. The vast majority of my exposure has been through the internet, and the few people I've met irl are my brother's friends. He's a radical inclusionist and an annoying leftoid, so I didn't click with them and don't talk to him much anymore. Most of his friends are all "nonbinary" he/theys and she/theys, so. You know.

Most of the social groups around me are catered towards either teens, old people, or black people. The only community I'd get in most places was if I was volunteering, as there's very little that would actually cater to me (tho it will be somewhat better when I'm 21 and can actually go to bars and shit) . The few LGBT people I've talked to that are in my state are also all leftists, most of them radical (like commies or socialists, not just Democrats). And I live in the fucking South, man.

There seems to be a lesbian or 2 at my work, but the reason why I know that is because they both have pictures of someone that I assume to be their wife/gf on their desks lmao.

I'm lucky enough to have found a bisexual centrist/normie guy that I'm interested in right now, but if things don't work out in the next couple of years, idk what I'm going to do next myself lol. The majority of republican/right-leaning LGBT people don't feel comfortable in the community, so I would say that the place to find them would probably not be at normal pride events, as annoying as that is.

Dating apps are always the next solution (there are right-wing dating apps, apparently), as well as gay bars. I can also recommend seeing if there's anything like the Pink Pistols, or some sort of other LGBT gun club around ya. There's also volunteering with your local charities and shelters and such: the other eligible people you meet there may not align with you politically, but at least volunteering together means you share some values in common.

If there can be a few right-wing lesbians and trans women that can survive on tumblr, then I'm sure that they exist irl. If you're an urbanite, you might just have to go to new places outside your usual route. And if you're in the country I'll move in with you then you'll probably have to go more towards bigger cities.

I'm going to pride this weekend, if I see any she/her lesbians I'll let ya know lol

[magz]

re: your post about tumblr adding support for fediverse--at the same time it's significantly better than the twitter thing, i'm generally not impressed by open source devs' approaches to free speech n stuff they're not much better than libertarians at best

The hypocritical obsession with ““free speech”” by some developers is a consequence of open source being contributable and directable by most anyone.

And it giving them the freedom to moderate however they like.

.

Just as much as there are leftist-identified developers, there’s centrists and conservatives that have their own agendas

when they support an internet not fully controlled by few big social media corporations and closed-source software.

Since they get banned at random for their hate speech in other circles.

.

I’m somewhat wondering how Tumblr would interact with that…

since some staff members recently claimed they want to restructure things to limit and ban white supremacist stuff,

and are preparing to make changes to do that but… i dunno.

At the very least ban fascist fediverse instances, please.

[nyeogmi]

the trope of “you’re in an echo chamber”

preemptively: i'm not, i hang out with old libertarians and even periodically interact with kiwis and trump fans. i have defended republicans before and i engage with centrist and right-wing news sources. i used to be a right-leaning libertarian with fairly conservative social views

when people go around saying "you're in an echo chamber" i think most of the time it's basically a way of saying "what if there are very good reasons to believe the thing we believe that you don't know about" without having to actually produce the reasons

a lot of people won't want to take that bet. like, maybe they have not _directly_ engaged with conservative sources and have only heard the tropes secondhand from people who they correctly assume are not good mouthpieces for those viewpoints

otoh you have people who have sought out opposing views and even people who are converts from those viewpoints. making the echochamber accusation against this kind of person makes little sense

in those cases, making the accusation is basically making an excuse for the crowd to ignore that person. it's usually not a serious challenge based on evidence, but instead just an appeal to a stereotype.

like, laptop-wielding nerds run the full political gamut but it's considered acceptable to act as if everyone who's a demsoc only interacts with laptop-wielders who are _also_ demsocs

imho this is not the only way that extremists and fringe go around innuendoing "i have good reasons, but i won't post them." you see a lot of "if i post the truth, they'll ban me" as well as people who act like "the deep and insightful reasons for why i think naziism is correct are buried in this book that costs $8 which i will not summarize"

maddeningly, moderates tend to assume that people who consistently say "well yes, i can prove it, and no, i can't tell you how" are telling you the truth

[skaldish]

So recently in a discussion I had with two other heathens about abortion rights and after both of them basically "mansplained" to me, a person that has the organs to push out a human how those organs worked. Told me to stop being a "snowflake liberal" and said that heathenry has always been a conservative religion and people like me are ruining it for everyone else. And they also said that I should watch for Freya, as She will most likely abandon and punish me because I'm a "baby killer supporter"

So actual question, as I'm not all that smart when it comes to academic research, is/was heathenry really conservative, I mean to the extent that it's starting to sound suspiciously like another religion..

Sorry, I know I should do the research but I have a really hard time comprehending academic papers, and need a layman's explanation 😅

No, and that is because our concepts of "liberal" and "conservative" are contemporary inventions. To retroactively fit either of them onto heathenry would be revisionist.

There is one exception though, and that is Odinism. This particular brand of Heathenry was born out of Nazi Germany and leans drastically right, valuing typical Nazi things such as "traditionalism," ethnocentrism, folkism, nationalism (in the form of tribalism, in this case), and "racialism" (separation of the races). The Nine Noble Virtues come from this lineage, actually, invented in the 1970's by actual literal fascists.

It's this kind of Heathenry that right-wingers (and some self-identifying libertarians and centrists) think of when they refer to Heathenry, often without realizing Odinism doesn't predate 1890 at the absolute earliest. (They also don't always call it Odinism--I just do for the sake of distinguishing it from older forms of Heathenry like forn sidr/forn sed).

They also tend to subscribe to a more boiled-down version of it, which is why the fascist components typically go unrecognized (or ignored in favor of the viking glamour).

Now, as for what Heathenry on the whole has always been? That has varied with time, location, and the sensibility of individuals. Our values are something we add to our Heathen practice, as opposed to something Heathenry gives us to follow. We can see this reflected throughout history.

The only real constant element in Heathenry is Animism--the belief that all things are interconnected and, to some degree, possess a vital essence of their own, and therefore agency. It's considered good manners to interact with the forces of the world in positive ways, because doing so will make our living environments and everyone in them happier and healthier for it.

Keep in mind that Heathenry is not a religion of doctrine. It's not like Christianity where you must do XYZ thing or be punished. We don't fear our gods, and they don't act as our lords, let alone the distant arbiters of our lives. And from what we can discern from text and culture and just the experience of them, punishing us for exercising bodily autonomy seems to go against everything they gods represent and stand for.

(The idea that Freyja would abandon anyone for saying women should have bodily autonomy is, frankly, fucking absurd. It's Freyja. Have they even met Freyja? This goddess rages at the mere mention of getting married off against her will. If you show her an idiot who tells her what to do with her body, she'll show him a one-way ticket to Helheim.)

If you want some gimmicky historical viking thing to go off of, consider this quote: "trúa á mátt sinn ok megin." I forget which exact saga it comes from, but it refers to trusting in one's own strength and power; the ability one has to exercise their own will and agency ("megin" has a complex meaning).

So in other words, choosing to exercise authority over your own body is probably as viking as you can get.

[solardrink]

that song is playing again. ranboo jokes about being a mirror for halloween to really scare people. we laugh in parasocial concern but mostly relate. ranboo considers going to a furry convention. he has a gaydar for his fans. we can tell. someone took his cookie. we all know it was tubbo. he has raised over 200 thousand dollars for people in need. he has randomly lost his train of thought. nevermind, its about merch. the ding of collecting ores in minecraft plays over and over. hes leaking merch ideas. it is so late holy shit. this man is going to pass out i dont believe for a second hes going for 10 more hours. he says he has a bunch of hours left but I Do Not Believe him. there is so much love and support here. people talk about their experiences and funny stories and people all over the world, enough to fill a stadium. react and smile. ranboo misses chipotle, poor man misses his tex-mex type food from cali. hes talking about benchtrio and i am Listening Intently. theres a hierarchy apparently. ranboos at the bottom for doing things suggestions. L. tubbo and ranboo are both weak to tommy if he says no to something which is very funny to me. ranboo is talking about their dynamic like rock paper scissors. tubbo and tommy would rather die than go somewhere a mile away. ranboo is most definitely the mom friend. he brings extra battery packs and masks for his friends if they need them. this boy is so endearing. tommy can ask for any of ranboos stuff and ranboo will probably give it to him cause he cant say no. ranboo cant be mad when tubbo ate 3/4 of his chocolate because he didnt say how much he could have. ranboo stares at a piece of iron ore for 3 minutes because he doesnt know where it came from. "nothing and everything is going on." hes asking if a food was made from chemicals but had the same flavor and shape and texture would we eat it? i have no idea it sounds kinda weird but maybe. ranboo says if it tastes good he would and i kinda expected that answer. he is yawning and i am yawning. i feel like this song has played already. i feel like this song has played already. he believes that milk before cereal is obviously wrong but hates arguing his case- a real libertarian centrist i expected nothing less from the man who orchestrates c!ranboo. hes now talking about people yelling about content creators and im lowkey caught offguard cause i wasnt listening. i miss tubbo. his phone fell why does this happen so often. "GIVE US SOME MONEY" hes talking about the mcyttwt thread and i fuckin agree it is the funniest thing holy shit. that also means that he has seen the covid stuff about wilbur and the "white, gay, man, loona stan, pick a struggle tweet" about tubbo and i dont how to feel about that tidbit. i have also read all of it, if you havent please do. i expected nothing less from ranboo to enjoy it. he is permenantly talking in his sleep which is interesting and also concerning. oliver has bought amongus plushies. someones cat is watching the stream. ranboos favorite cat breed are the ones that look. just kidding its black and white ones. his worst recent nightmare is him messing up on a facecam stream which is a bit sad. i put a D: in chat to express the kind of parasocial emotion i feel. he would steal your chips. he would reimburse you because he would feel bad though. ranboo read "effortlessly" wrong which is very ironic and funny. he messed up saying it again. hes quitting the internet. he had a pretty bad nightmare :(. i want tubbo when is he coming back. ranboos getting better at bridging in minecraft. he did pretty well imo. ba bow bow now now now now. thanks for the 25 tier ones. he will paint his nails eventually. one day. one day. im teasing he will most likely do it maybe. he would probably pierce his ears and i am excited about that a normal amount. ba now bow na bow now. ouch facial dysmorphia ow streamer ow. this sucks. i am feeling trauma dumped on but this is okay. dono is asking where would he get chicken nuggets and fries and he doesnt know. i want chicken nuggets. WHAT THE HECKKK THE BURNER WHO

POSTED THE MCYTTWT THREAD DEACTIVATED CAUSE RANBOO TALKED ABOUT THEM :(( crap. ranboo didnt mean that to happen but its ok :( there are so many hearts in this dam chatroom. im glad there are so many hearts here. tens of thousands of people here being sympathetic and kind. ranboo is not sleeping. invisibility and shape shifting are the super powers he would pick if he could. we know why ouch. 100% of proceeds are going to charity: water. people are intimidated by ranboo. i am not. wilbur is a little scary though. ranboo doesnt know his personality type, i dont either i think i took the test at least twice but i still dont remember what i got. this song is playing again. im not mad angry people by lemon demon is one of my favorite songs. pepeDS. ranboo our variety streamer <3 my favorite non-mcyt. but actually can ranboo be considered a mcyt. because all his yt videos are not mc they are in fact cooking/furniture building/internet funnies. ranboo is going to have a gummy. yum. donos cat died and is still dead- which leaves the comical opportunity for the cat to be resurrected. WHAT HE DOESNT LIKE CHEESECAKE THAT MUCH BECAUSE THE AFTERTASTE? this man mustve had dairy free cheesecake wtf where is he getting his cheesecake from. hes very mature talking about his facial dysmorphia in a technical manner and i find that admirable. ou ch he knows what it means to use unconventional methods to fix facial dysmorphia ow ow ow fuck im a poc and i used to be self conscious of my nose when i was younger shit. "i bet you think ketchup is spicy white boy." i am going to sob. hes leaving michael headcanons to the writers/artists <3 i think that is pretty neat. chat he said piglin not penguin, dumbasses. im kidding i love chat this stream they are too hivemind and silly to be anything but well-behaved besides spamming. he is a hufflepuff. so am i. i took that damn quiz three times. he has not tried beans on toast because he is scared. i would be too. dono reminded all of us when dreamworks tried to make sexy fish. ranboo is upset now. im not mad that lady fish was pretty hot. ignore that. he wants us hot fish enjoyers out of his chat. im not leaving. i cant breathe im having so much fun. 5 more minutes until 12 hours. im not sure if this man has taken a bathroom break once. woo theres a hype train. hes talking about that one tiktok audio where theres an edit of minecraft streamers being told by their chat to say ____ rights or else they are homophobic. ranboos right its hilarious. i think i might end this post now smile bye bye :)

[beardedmrbean]

Hey can you and your followers help me with this- I am thinking I’m centrist and/or Libertarian. I’m having trouble finding good definitions for these and their views on items. Do you have an idea or good sources? Is it possible to be both?

there's not really any set way to define a centrist.

Honestly most people fall under the umbrella of being one, there's just right leaning and left leaning and even that's not set in stone.

Contrary to what many places on the internet will try and tell you it has nothing to do with fence sitting you can have very strong opinions on whatever the subject at hand may be I hate the wishy washy image people throw out there to try and discredit peoples positions.

Typically it's leftists that do that to them, but I've got things I lean left on and things I lean right on I don't align with any side on a majority of issues.

Not an enlightened thing either I'm not smarter or better than anyone just have a different way of approaching things.

As for libertarian If I had to sum the philosophy up in the least amount of words

Add in government go away and taxation is theft.

@libertarianblue is a good guy to talk about that with, not so extreme as some of them patient and really good at being clear and through.

Not like like the first 2 guys here

2016 Libertarian presidential debate is a gift, but no to the libertarians.

[maaarine]

Tech nerds are smart. But they can't seem to get their heads around politics. (David Roberts, Vox, Aug 27 2015)

“There are two broad narratives about politics that can be glimpsed between the lines here. Both are, in the argot of the day, problematic.

The first, which is extremely common in the nerd community, is a distaste for government and politics. 

Sometimes this shades over into ideological libertarianism (see: Peter Thiel, who wants to build a floating libertarian city), but often it's just a sense that government is big, bloated, slow-moving, and inefficient, that politicians are dimwits and panderers, and that real progress comes from private innovation, not government mandates. 

None of which is facially unreasonable.

The second is the conception of politics as a contest of two mirror-image political philosophies, with mirror-image extremes and a common center, which is where sensible, independent-minded people congregate ("both parties have good points; both also have a bunch of dumb people saying dumb things"). (…)

I think that these two narratives — disdain toward politics, and the parties as mirror images with rational thinking in the center — are connected. 

That vision of the political spectrum implies that one is partisan precisely in proportion to one's distance from rational thinking. 

It defines partisanship as irrationality, as blind, lemming-like behavior, the opposite of approaching things "from a standpoint of rationality and what I think makes sense." 

The independent thinker takes a bit from this party, a bit from that one, as rational thinking dictates.

Since the loudest voices in politics are partisans, people who have chosen a side, seeing the political spectrum this way is inevitably going to lead to an irritation and disdain toward politics, a desire to wash one's hands of it and proclaim, as Urban does, that "I am not political." 

But that just won't do. (…)

People who know little about the landscape of politics or the mechanisms of policy will tend to support positions outside the mainstream, often positions that more experienced political observers will find ludicrous (for good or ill). 

A voter with deeply informed, mildly center-left positions will code as "more partisan" than a moderate who has ill-informed positions that are all over the map, but that doesn't mean the moderate is more centrist or more rational.

Third, in practical coalitional politics, the "center" will tend to be shaped not by rational thinking but by money and power. 

If there is any space left for bipartisanship in US politics, it is around measures that benefit corporate elites.

The right-wing base has a coherent position on climate change: It's a hoax, so we shouldn't do anything about it. 

The left-wing base has a coherent position: It's happening, so we should do something about it. 

The "centrist" position, shared by conservative Democrats and the few remaining moderate Republicans, is that it's happening but we shouldn't do anything about it. 

That's not centrist in any meaningful ideological sense; instead, like most areas of overlap between the parties, it is corporatist.”