#most western point

[you-need-not-apply]

I meant favourite but that works to

[tanadrin]

Do you think that people who invent things with very destructive consequences are blinded to the downsides of it more by money or more by scientific curiosity?

I think the downsides are not always immediately obvious. Coal-fired electricity looks a lot more attractive in 1882 when there's literally only one such power plant and the global population is like 18% its present value. TNT was invented as a yellow dye, and it's so stable its usefulness as an explosive wasn't discovered until thirty years later.

We have this collective mental image, promoted by simplifications of historical narratives, that the inventor is a lone genius who through his labor produces an artifact and all its consequences in a single moment in time, and without which the thing would never be invented. Pretty much every point in that narrative is wrong. New technologies are the culmination of many different discoveries; there are enough very smart people working at the cutting edge of these fields that if one of them did not discover the principles behind these inventions, another almost certainly would sooner or later; and the exact applications of new technologies, nevermind how they will change society when those applications are utilized, often take years or decades to discover.

Now, I think there is an extent to which, as a working scientists, you can reasonably be held to account for the work you do. If you work at the Acme National Horrible Death By Chemical Weapons Laboratory, and invent a new, horrible chemical weapon, you do not get to go "oh no!" in shock when somebody dies to your horrible chemical weapon. And sometimes scientists do have a pretty good idea of how their technology will be used--the Haber Process was originally invented to manufacture fertilizers, but its application to the manufacturing of explosives was pretty clear to Fritz Haber, and he joined the German effort to develop deadlier chemical weapons pretty enthusiastically.

Men like Haber seem historically to be motivated not by intrinsic greed, but by the things which motivate us all: the desire to provide for their loved ones, the approval of their peers and the respect of their colleagues, and their status in society. The problem with respect to scientists who know damn well what they're doing isn't that everybody working at the Acme National Horrible Death By Chemical Weapons Laboratory is greedy and the job pays too much; the problem is that society, by and large, respects you and looks up to you and fetes you at public events and talks about what a patriot and a community leader you are if you do really well at inventing new, horrible chemical weapons.

[myaoiboy]

do you believe Love Deterrence was kind of a love confession from Kaz to BB?

Sort of. Kind of. I do think it was about BB, and we know the lyrics are written by Kaz.

I don't know if we ever find out all the languages that BB speaks, obviously English, Russian, Spanish, that leaves iirc 3 more languages he speaks, and I don't know if Japanese is ever confirmed as one.

It seems likely given that he speaks to Kojima in PW, and that BB speaking other languages is translated for the player, but Venom also speaks to him and gets a verbal response in TPP, and we know that was in English due to [mumbled summary of TPP plot]. That's probably the closest we get to confirmation.

Anyways my point with that is, I tend to think that BB doesn't speak Japanese, at least not around Kaz, and Kaz intentionally wrote Love Deterrence in a language he didn't think BB knew so that he could get his feelings out without the utter mortification of actually sharing them.

[worstloki]

negative connotations to Arabic phrase ‘God is Great’ incorrect. average praying Muslim does takbir (says Allahu Akbar) a minimum 95 times a day and should have been counted.

[muirneach]

idk how annoying ass ppl on here can be “All Old Country Is Good And Leftist” and also “All Westerns Are Racist” and also “All Cowboys Ever Were Latino/Black” and also “All People In The Country Are Conservative” simultaneously like this shit doesnt add up

[vashti-lives]

After vague blogging about fanfic and YA I will say that the issue of media for teens mixing poorly with all ages and adult media is not a problem exclusive to fanfic writers. 90% of the conflict in the star wars fandom stems from the fact that star wars’ YA and children’s media is to some degree canonically and philosophically incompatible with the mainline movies. In the movies the Jedi are unequivocally the heroes and we’re supposed to respect them even as they get backed into a terrible corner. They’re wise heroes doing their best.

In the media made for kids by necessity the adults of the Jedi order have to make absolutely wild and absurd decisions in order for the kid protagonists to get chances to do heroic stuff actual kids would find fun and exciting. This naturally puts their behavior at odds with the goals of the movies.

Add in that the movies don’t hold up to close reads because they’re intended to be fun summer blockbusters, and the fact that the Jedi are based on a fairly shallow understanding of a non-western collectivist lifestyle without nuclear families which is extremely foreign to western audiences and what do you get? Decades worth of discourse over whether the Jedi are actually good guys which can never be resolved because they're based on completely different ways of analyzing media. Worse, nobody can agree on what parts of star wars should be counted in the first place so even if you're analyzing things in the same style you might still be doomed.

[bisexualamy]

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[gaypornvideoswebsite]

what the ICC deems legitimate is still largely based upon western colonial thought. i can only hope tomorrow and the following proceedings bring more awareness (to those still somehow ignorant willful or otherwise) but the enforcement of systemic change should not be expected. no amount of documents and papers and bills and petitions can meaningfully stop a genocidier. they are just empty threats. imagining our roles in aiding the palestinian resistance without continuing western imperial tradition is vital. if palestinian liberation looked a certain way, would you be upset? why? do you secretly see indigenous autonomy as a loss of western control? are you prepared to see a world where the colonizers truly lose? cause it hasn’t happened yet.

[art-heap]

not going to watch ms marvel or engage with it at all but i’m definitely curious about Who Exactly decided Kamela’s power should come from Djinn and who decided to have Nakia look like that

Because whoever made those decisions knows exactly what they’re doing. Trying to make Muslim immigrants stomachable for white audiences and in doing so removing the aspects of religion and culture that defined so many characters in this series and moreover define us as people

[bonojour]

i consider tornadoes to be a pretty legitimate risk when it comes to natural disasters in europe, but people tend to not have much of a grasp on them occurring outside of tornado alley in the usa. i follow this guy for a couple years now and he is a huge recommendation to follow if you are interested in tornadoes. i am grateful that he did such a well-researched video on tornadoes in europe, and i am also kinda glad that the areas he marked as most active, are the same areas i personally have considered to be remarkably active compared to others. definitely worth a watch!

[fragmentedblade]

I've actually found a coherent (negative) criticism on Jingli.u's quest!! Wow!! It's in Chinese on weibo

This user said her behaviour is very double standard. That she criticises and condemns both Dan Fen.g and Yingx.ing severely for trying to bring back Bai.heng in any way, but then she goes to visit Bail.u and tells her that seeing her is better than any medicine. And the user is right! That's exactly why they did what they did (well, I've always been of the opinion that Dan Fen.g had more reasons going on based on the in game information), so why the insistent asking to Blade?

The user also says that Jingliu doesn't really behave at all like a friend, that while very believable that she loved and was close to Bai.heng, it's hard to believe the same thing when it comes to Yingxi.ng and Dan Fen.g. They said that nowadays we still see instances through the Xianzhou in which they are both spoken about in positive terms, that Yingxi.ng is talked about as a legendary furnace master, and we can even stumble upon good opinions on Dan Fen.g, but that Jingli.u never shows that kind of understanding for people in theory she loved, knew personally and was close to.

I don't agree entirely with this, I do think there was a lot of fondness from Jingliu shining through despite everything (especially towards Yin.gxing, in my opinion), but I do think it's a somewhat fair criticism. I loved how they mention that despite everything the Xianzhou's view on Yingxin.g and Dan Fen.g isn't just negative. They're right, and it's a detail I love.

[espooky]

The Decline of Western Civilization (1981)

[dailyfatefigures]

Saber - 1/7 Scale - Fantasy Maid Ver. by PLUM

[godekubo]

now that i'm thinking about it. like. what is supposed to be the appeal about making ekurei just 2 conventional hot guys doing conventional stuff. idk it just feels so boring to me?

[lgbttruther]

i have such strong feelings about anime/manga culture in the the ought 2000's (mostly due to escapism) like most of my irl/physical manga library is built off of it. some of my formative con-going experiences are built off of the fact that a guy i saw at a con when i was 13 was still at the university anime club when in was 19 even though he must have been pushing his mid-30s. dude taught me a lot about zubats at that one con i went to. my less-monitored otaku peers still taught me more, though. I kind of want to make a list of the series that i personally felt defined that era

[sleevebuscemii]

was listening to an interview with some guy who was an advisor on arab-israeli negotiations for three administrations in the US and he started talking about how he was in jerusalem october 6th 1973 and saw ‘an israeli society that was traumatized’ and how israel has overcome trauma before blah blah blah like BITCH!!!!!! you mean THE 6th of October, when Egypt defeated the Israeli army and forced them to retreat out of the Sinai Peninsula WHICH THEY WERE OCCUPYING???

just absolutely baffling that israel’s CONSISTENT playbook is to start a war and then cry when they have to suffer the consequences of said war. how are YOU gonna be traumatized from stealing someone else’s house and then them taking it back??!!??!!!! fake ass country i swear to god

whats even funnier is that he then went on to talk about how egypt and israel signed a peace treaty six years as in like ‘look see arabs and israel can find peace’ AS IF egypt didn’t face extreme backlash for decades for signing that treaty, as if it wasn’t one of the most controversial actions in arab-israeli relations in history, so much controversy and backlash that the president of egypt who signed it was assassinated for signing it.