#or govern how people on the internet use stuff

[bewires]

the disconnect between the way people who work on and with AI talk about it and the reporting/social media discourse on it makes it incredibly hard to have a meaningful conversation about it

[gwyoi]

I kind of hate the discussion on privacy/data selling because there will always be people who are like “I can’t believe all of you plebs let the apps know your data I use Linux so I’m safe 😌” and it’s like well no. I think people care but you can’t really do anything about it. Even you using your duckduckgo and having all your accounts separate from one another is not fooling the government . Like obviously that’s bad but no amount of protecting yourself as an individual will change how pervasive this stuff is in the US

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Tesla's Dieselgate

Elon Musk lies a lot. He lies about being a “utopian socialist.” He lies about being a “free speech absolutist.” He lies about which companies he founded:

https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-cofounder-martin-eberhard-interview-history-elon-musk-ev-market-2023-2 He lies about being the “chief engineer” of those companies:

https://www.quora.com/Was-Elon-Musk-the-actual-engineer-behind-SpaceX-and-Tesla

He lies about really stupid stuff, like claiming that comsats that share the same spectrum will deliver steady broadband speeds as they add more users who each get a narrower slice of that spectrum:

https://www.eff.org/wp/case-fiber-home-today-why-fiber-superior-medium-21st-century-broadband

The fundamental laws of physics don’t care about this bullshit, but people do. The comsat lie convinced a bunch of people that pulling fiber to all our homes is literally impossible — as though the electrical and phone lines that come to our homes now were installed by an ancient, lost civilization. Pulling new cabling isn’t a mysterious art, like embalming pharaohs. We do it all the time. One of the poorest places in America installed universal fiber with a mule named “Ole Bub”:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Previous tech barons had “reality distortion fields,” but Musk just blithely contradicts himself and pretends he isn’t doing so, like a budget Steve Jobs. There’s an entire site devoted to cataloging Musk’s public lies:

https://elonmusk.today/

But while Musk lacks the charm of earlier Silicon Valley grifters, he’s much better than they ever were at running a long con. For years, he’s been promising “full self driving…next year.”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

He’s hasn’t delivered, but he keeps claiming he has, making Teslas some of the deadliest cars on the road:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/

Tesla is a giant shell-game masquerading as a car company. The important thing about Tesla isn’t its cars, it’s Tesla’s business arrangement, the Tesla-Financial Complex:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#Rat

Once you start unpacking Tesla’s balance sheets, you start to realize how much the company depends on government subsidies and tax-breaks, combined with selling carbon credits that make huge, planet-destroying SUVs possible, under the pretense that this is somehow good for the environment:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

But even with all those financial shenanigans, Tesla’s got an absurdly high valuation, soaring at times to 1600x its profitability:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/15/hoover-calling/#intangibles

That valuation represents a bet on Tesla’s ability to extract ever-higher rents from its customers. Take Tesla’s batteries: you pay for the battery when you buy your car, but you don’t own that battery. You have to rent the right to use its full capacity, with Tesla reserving the right to reduce how far you go on a charge based on your willingness to pay:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/09/10/teslas-demon-haunted-cars-in-irmas-path-get-a-temporary-battery-life-boost/

That’s just one of the many rent-a-features that Tesla drivers have to shell out for. You don’t own your car at all: when you sell it as a used vehicle, Tesla strips out these features you paid for and makes the next driver pay again, reducing the value of your used car and transfering it to Tesla’s shareholders:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-autopilot-disabled-remotely-used-car-update

To maintain this rent-extraction racket, Tesla uses DRM that makes it a felony to alter your own car’s software without Tesla’s permission. This is the root of all autoenshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

This is technofeudalism. Whereas capitalists seek profits (income from selling things), feudalists seek rents (income from owning the things other people use). If Telsa were a capitalist enterprise, then entrepreneurs could enter the market and sell mods that let you unlock the functionality in your own car:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/11/1-in-3/#boost-50

But because Tesla is a feudal enterprise, capitalists must first secure permission from the fief, Elon Musk, who decides which companies are allowed to compete with him, and how.

Once a company owns the right to decide which software you can run, there’s no limit to the ways it can extract rent from you. Blocking you from changing your device’s software lets a company run overt scams on you. For example, they can block you from getting your car independently repaired with third-party parts.

But they can also screw you in sneaky ways. Once a device has DRM on it, Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it a felony to bypass that DRM, even for legitimate purposes. That means that your DRM-locked device can spy on you, and because no one is allowed to explore how that surveillance works, the manufacturer can be incredibly sloppy with all the personal info they gather:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/29/tesla-model-3-keeps-data-like-crash-videos-location-phone-contacts.html

All kinds of hidden anti-features can lurk in your DRM-locked car, protected from discovery, analysis and criticism by the illegality of bypassing the DRM. For example, Teslas have a hidden feature that lets them lock out their owners and summon a repo man to drive them away if you have a dispute about a late payment:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

DRM is a gun on the mantlepiece in Act I, and by Act III, it goes off, revealing some kind of ugly and often dangerous scam. Remember Dieselgate? Volkswagen created a line of demon-haunted cars: if they thought they were being scrutinized (by regulators measuring their emissions), they switched into a mode that traded performance for low emissions. But when they believed themselves to be unobserved, they reversed this, emitting deadly levels of NOX but delivering superior mileage.

The conversion of the VW diesel fleet into mobile gas-chambers wouldn’t have been possible without DRM. DRM adds a layer of serious criminal jeopardy to anyone attempting to reverse-engineer and study any device, from a phone to a car. DRM let Apple claim to be a champion of its users’ privacy even as it spied on them from asshole to appetite:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Now, Tesla is having its own Dieselgate scandal. A stunning investigation by Steve Stecklow and Norihiko Shirouzu for Reuters reveals how Tesla was able to create its own demon-haunted car, which systematically deceived drivers about its driving range, and the increasingly desperate measures the company turned to as customers discovered the ruse:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/

The root of the deception is very simple: Tesla mis-sells its cars by falsely claiming ranges that those cars can’t attain. Every person who ever bought a Tesla was defrauded.

But this fraud would be easy to detect. If you bought a Tesla rated for 353 miles on a charge, but the dashboard range predictor told you that your fully charged car could only go 150 miles, you’d immediately figure something was up. So your Telsa tells another lie: the range predictor tells you that you can go 353 miles.

But again, if the car continued to tell you it has 203 miles of range when it was about to run out of charge, you’d figure something was up pretty quick — like, the first time your car ran out of battery while the dashboard cheerily informed you that you had 203 miles of range left.

So Teslas tell a third lie: when the battery charge reached about 50%, the fake range is replaced with the real one. That way, drivers aren’t getting mass-stranded by the roadside, and the scam can continue.

But there’s a new problem: drivers whose cars are rated for 353 miles but can’t go anything like that far on a full charge naturally assume that something is wrong with their cars, so they start calling Tesla service and asking to have the car checked over.

This creates a problem for Tesla: those service calls can cost the company $1,000, and of course, there’s nothing wrong with the car. It’s performing exactly as designed. So Tesla created its boldest fraud yet: a boiler-room full of anti-salespeople charged with convincing people that their cars weren’t broken.

This new unit — the “diversion team” — was headquartered in a Nevada satellite office, which was equipped with a metal xylophone that would be rung in triumph every time a Tesla owner was successfully conned into thinking that their car wasn’t defrauding them.

When a Tesla owner called this boiler room, the diverter would run remote diagnostics on their car, then pronounce it fine, and chide the driver for having energy-hungry driving habits (shades of Steve Jobs’s “You’re holding it wrong”):

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

The drivers who called the Diversion Team weren’t just lied to, they were also punished. The Tesla app was silently altered so that anyone who filed a complaint about their car’s range was no longer able to book a service appointment for any reason. If their car malfunctioned, they’d have to request a callback, which could take several days.

Meanwhile, the diverters on the diversion team were instructed not to inform drivers if the remote diagnostics they performed detected any other defects in the cars.

The diversion team had a 750 complaint/week quota: to juke this stat, diverters would close the case for any driver who failed to answer the phone when they were eventually called back. The center received 2,000+ calls every week. Diverters were ordered to keep calls to five minutes or less.

Eventually, diverters were ordered to cease performing any remote diagnostics on drivers’ cars: a source told Reuters that “Thousands of customers were told there is nothing wrong with their car” without any diagnostics being performed.

Predicting EV range is an inexact science as many factors can affect battery life, notably whether a journey is uphill or downhill. Every EV automaker has to come up with a figure that represents some kind of best guess under a mix of conditions. But while other manufacturers err on the side of caution, Tesla has the most inaccurate mileage estimates in the industry, double the industry average.

Other countries’ regulators have taken note. In Korea, Tesla was fined millions and Elon Musk was personally required to state that he had deceived Tesla buyers. The Korean regulator found that the true range of Teslas under normal winter conditions was less than half of the claimed range.

Now, many companies have been run by malignant narcissists who lied compulsively — think of Thomas Edison, archnemesis of Nikola Tesla himself. The difference here isn’t merely that Musk is a deeply unfit monster of a human being — but rather, that DRM allows him to defraud his customers behind a state-enforced opaque veil. The digital computers at the heart of a Tesla aren’t just demons haunting the car, changing its performance based on whether it believes it is being observed — they also allow Musk to invoke the power of the US government to felonize anyone who tries to peer into the black box where he commits his frauds.

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/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

This Sunday (July 30) at 1530h, I’m appearing on a panel at Midsummer Scream in Long Beach, CA, to discuss the wonderful, award-winning “Ghost Post” Haunted Mansion project I worked on for Disney Imagineering.

Image ID [A scene out of an 11th century tome on demon-summoning called 'Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros. Anno 1057. Noli me tangere.' It depicts a demon tormenting two unlucky would-be demon-summoners who have dug up a grave in a graveyard. One summoner is held aloft by his hair, screaming; the other screams from inside the grave he is digging up. The scene has been altered to remove the demon's prominent, urinating penis, to add in a Tesla supercharger, and a red Tesla Model S nosing into the scene.]

Image: Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tesla_Model_S_Indoors.jpg

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

[heritageposts]

how do i start to read marxist leninist/leftist stuff ? i searched on the internet but it’s super confusing lol

the most important value for me as an ML is anti-imperialism, so i guess i'll always recommend that people start with works centred on that

some suggestions below (all books should be available either on marxist.org or as pdf/epub files on libgen)

American Holocaust by David E. Stannard

about the colonization of america. not explicitly marxist, but it's probably done more to radicalize me than any other piece of writing. this is the pile of corpses capitalism is built on:

Within no more than a handful of generations following their first en counters with Europeans, the vast majority of the Western Hemisphere's native peoples had been exterminated. The pace and magnitude of their obliteration varied from place to place and from time to time, but for years now historical demographers have been uncovering, in region upon region, post-Columbian depopulation rates of between 90 and 98 percent with such regularity that an overall decline of 95 percent has become a working rule of thumb. What this means is that, on average, for every twenty natives alive at the moment of European contact-when the lands of the Americas teemed with numerous tens of millions of people-only one stood in their place when the bloodbath was over. To put this in a contemporary context, the ratio of native survivorship in the Americas following European contact was less than half of what the human survivorship ratio would be in the United States today if every single white person and every single black person died. The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world. That is why, as one historian aptly has said, far from the heroic and romantic heraldry that customarily is used to symbolize the European settlement of the Americas, the emblem most congruent with reality would be a pyramid of skulls. - David E. Stannard

2. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Vladimir Lenin

Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed. - Vladimir Lenin

3. The Wretched of The Earth by Franz Fanon

Let us look at ourselves, if we can bear to, and see what is becoming of us. First, we must face that unexpected revelation, the strip-tease of our humanism. There you can see it, quite naked, and it’s not a pretty sight. It was nothing but an ideology of lies, a perfect justification for pillage; its honeyed words, its affectation of sensibility were only alibis for our aggressions. A fine sight they are too, the believers in non-violence, saying that they are neither executioners nor victims. Very well then; if you’re not victims when the government which you’ve voted for, when the army in which your younger brothers are serving without hesitation or remorse have undertaken race murder, you are, without a shadow of doubt, executioners. And if you chose to be victims and to risk being put in prison for a day or two, you are simply choosing to pull your irons out of the fire. But you will not be able to pull them out; they’ll have to stay there till the end. Try to understand this at any rate: if violence began this very evening and if exploitation and oppression had never existed on the earth, perhaps the slogans of non-violence might end the quarrel. But if the whole regime, even your non-violent ideas, are conditioned by a thousand-year-old oppression, your passivity serves only to place you in the ranks of the oppressors. - prefrace by Jean-Paul Sartre

4. Discourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire

Yes, it would be worthwhile to study clinically, in detail, the steps taken by Hitler and Hitlerism and to reveal to the very distinguished, very humanistic, very Christian bourgeois of the twentieth century that without his being aware of it, he has a Hitler inside him, that Hitler inhabits him, that Hitler is his demon, that if he rails against him, he is being inconsistent and that, at bottom, what he cannot forgive Hitler for is not crime in itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man as such, it is the crime against the white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa I have talked a good deal about Hitler. Because he deserves it: he makes it possible to see things on a large scale and to grasp the fact that capitalist society, at its present stage, is incapable of establishing a concept of the rights of all men, just as it has proved incapable of establishing a system of individual ethics. Whether one likes it or not, at the end of the blind alley that is Europe, I mean the Europe of Adenauer, Schuman, Bidault, and a few others, there is Hitler. At the end of capitalism, which is eager to outlive its day, there is Hitler. At the end of formal humanism and philosophicrenunciation, there is Hitler - Aimé Césaire

5. Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism by Michael Parenti

probably the most accessible introduction to communism that doesn't demonize countries that have undergone—or attempted to undergo—a transitation into socalism (like the ussr, cuba, etc.)

The very concept of "revolutionary violence" is somewhat falsely cast, since most of the violence comes from those who attempt to prevent reform, not from those struggling for reform. By focusing on the violent rebellions of the downtrodden, we overlook the much greater repressive force and violence utilized by the ruling oligarchs to maintain the status quo, including armed attacks against peaceful demonstrations, mass arrests, torture, destruction of opposition organizations, suppression of dissident publications, death squad assassinations, the extermination of whole villages, and the like. - Michael Parenti

[xerith-42]

I know it seems like striking on social media might not do enough, but as someone who has been outright obsessively using the internet since I was a child to the point that it is literally woven in my soul, been active and involved in online activism for about five years, and been using social media as marketing for about the same amount of time, I can confidently say that

THIS FUCKING WORKS!!

People base their entire businesses on their success on social media. They look at trending topics on twitter and don't see bite sized chunks of culture distilled to its finest and worst moments, they see market data! They don't see you as a single human being, they see you as a data point among thousands run through a probably AI assisted system that's prone to fucking up, that determines everything they're going to do.

How they're going to advertise, who they target it with it, what the general public wants. Every single major corporation uses data from social media websites to do this. Every. Single. One. Social media is a lot of things, and one of those things is a tool for business and politics. We know for a fact that social media politics bleeds out into the real world very fucking quickly.

Even if you can't strike financially, even if you have to go to work or school to survive, striking on social media is one of the best things you can do. Even if it's quiet. People are going to notice when thousands upon thousands of users across various sites go completely dark, and even more when some of them start getting real fucking loud about this. The US Capitalist Infused Government loves sweeping war crimes under the rug once they think the general public has forgotten about their atrocities and fallen into complacency. This system has been doing this for literal centuries.

Social media is just the newest and most expansive form we as a species have developed in the ongoing invention of ways to express our thoughts about things. It's the weirdest one, that's for sure, but executives pay attention to it. They don't often seek to understand it beyond a very basic level, because as I said, they view us as numbers on a screen, not as multifaceted incredibly and deeply fucked human beings. They do not seek to understand us on a personal level unless they think the cost of it won't outweigh the potential profit.

Pattern recognition is the tool of the moment. Machine Learning. Gathering endless amounts of data so we can replicate human existence through machines. You may think that social media strikes are ineffective because social media is just on the internet and it's "not real", but it is real! You are really doing stuff! You are contributing! Even if you're just lurking! Basic amounts of engagement can make a huge impact in a busted algorithm. Maybe you're not someone who would ever be drafted into an actual war-zone due to physical or mental health conditions, but you are probably a part of a key demographic of people that businesses are absolutely hungry for.

The budding adult has always been the target of greedy capitalists basically since this system was established and continued to get worse over time. The stage of your life when you are in the age range of 18-25 is an incredibly important transitional period, followed by a transitional period every six months until you lose sense of what six months even is because you haven't been happy in eight, and if you're in the 18-25 range currently, you got extra fucked by the pandemic. The world is in a turbulent stage and we are at the center of all of it and have been since 2001. Every single social media marketing expert will tell you the 18-25 demographic of social media users is a target demographic, because they are the most prone to extremes due to a life chock full of them.

We have to remember to be human, but we have to also know how to speak their language. They just see us as numbers? Let's show them some fucking numbers. Make posts about Gaza trend on every platform you have your hands on. Even if it's just liking posts, that gives them a slight boost in the algorithm. Commenting on posts is especially important on sites like Twitter and Instagram. But across every site the most important thing to do is reblog/retweet/share/send/copy link, whatever it is for that site, it is the biggest thing that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE looks at.

From a humble artist to a head of marketing at a billion dollar corporation about to have a meeting with a barely over 21 intern about how they need to run the twitter account, to said intern bumbling their way through adulthood with a job they only feel they're good at because they've been using social media since Skype was invented. We need to be loud, we need to make sure this can't be ignored, we can't sweep this under the rug. Mass media, especially coming out of the West, has been trying to censor, de-sanitize, and keep this issue quiet.

DO NOT LET YOURSELF BE SILENCED

There are tens of thousands of DEAD CHILDREN who have been BOMBED while in CIVILIAN AREAS and that is a FUCKING WAR CRIME.

THIS IS A GENOCIDE

Say that as many times as you can. Do not let it be ignored. A silent populous is a complacent one. Use your voice, even as small as it may seem. Make noise. Be loud. Be annoying. Don't let this be ignored. Talk about it everywhere you go. Do not let this be ignored.

Sometimes even we get disconnected from the real people around us. We base our sense of worth as a person based on the numbers going up or down but instead of developing a gambling addiction we just got angry about it but still fall into it because of cultural conditioning. But even if you only have let's say, completely random example, 70 followers. And only a small percent of them will see your post. Let's say maybe 20 on average, 30 on a good day, and even higher based on the machinations of fate. That's still 20 people who took time out of their day to read something you wrote, process something you created, share a part of your experience of living.

And likely they felt compelled to share it too, therefore increasing the spread of people who feel your influence. 20 people may not seem like a lot, but that has a major impact. Now imagine posts into the hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands and even millions. Those aren't just numbers. Each and every single one of those is just another person who might have reblogged a post because someone they like shared it, or because they wanted to spread its message, and that simple act causes a single post to have massive waves of effects from simple ripples.

Don't let yourself be discouraged. Don't think your voice or your impact "isn't enough to matter." Everything counts.

Don't let this be ignored. Don't become complacent. Know that every little thing counts, and to do every little thing you can.

[lady-raziel]

long reaction to the update

ok. so they put out an update video! since i've been commentating for the last three days i might as well subject you all to more of my thoughts today.

main takeaway: this was a good apology video. i mean it. short and to the point, no overproduction, heartfelt and honest (and not a ukelele to be seen. thank god.) they took ownership of the situation, apologized, and restated how much they value their relationship with the fandom.

their solution is to make the watcher tv platform into kind of an iteration of patreon where content is available for early access before it is released onto youtube later. this is clearly a better option than paywalling everything for everyone. i'm not sure what the relative breakdown of costs turns out to be when you compare how much they were making on patreon after the platform took their cut VS how much it costs in overhead to run and maintain their own platform (how much it costs annually to contract via Vimeo, essentially). but i'm sure that's part of the calculation.

all things considered, that does seem like the best option out of all the alternatives. it allows them to not completely abandon any of the pans they have simmering over the fire for the time being. i don't think i ever thought they were going to just say "oops, forget about the streaming thing! let's pretend that never happened!" because at this point they've invested quite a lot of time and money into it, and i don't disagree that keeping it in some iteration may help them make up some of the funds they're lacking.

i would say, it's fine to keep the streamer. this is one of the ok outcomes, all things considered-- but if they're going to do it, they've GOT to do it smart from this point forward. listen to both the fans and the consultants intimately. both are going to have valid points, and both are going to be right. listening to too much of either side will sink this thing because each has motives and expertise that the other doesn't. if the fans say $6 is too much, listen to them-- but have conversations with business consultants about how much you realistically need to charge to make things work.

also, i'd use this whole situation as a learning experience. watcher is a young company, and it's literally inevitable that mistakes will happen. what's different is that the watcher crew haven't really been in a position before where they've been on the receiving end of the internet-angry-justice-hammer to this extent. it's one thing to watch it happen to others, but it's a position of extreme privilege (and a bit of hubris) to think "but that won't happen to me, because i'm built different." naw, man-- two things in life are inevitable: death and fuckups. the callout posts get us all in the end.

what's really important is that they use this as a wakeup call that even the most loyal fandoms will only follow you so far to the cliff's edge, and you don't want to push that. you have to strike a balance between the passion projects that you think are worthy and the stuff that maybe doesn't excite you as much anymore but the people want to see. a little fanservice keeps the lights on, as unfair as that might seem. i'm gonna make 50 markiplier choccy milk memes just so i can make one niche political joke once and a while for 6 likes. it is what it is.

i'd also use this as a chance to take a very careful look at company structure and finances. it's not fun to do and nobody likes it. trust me-- this is hard whether you're a single adult trying to pay the bills or the freaking US government (speaking from experience on both-- i have to read the president's budget for work frequently). but you all have to ask hard questions about the ratio of creative staff you take on VS staff for administrative and other business roles, as well as the costs and benefits of everything you spend money on. how many staff members are essential to location shoots? can this video be shot with 2 cameras instead of 3 and thus you don't need another cameraperson? you might even have to come to the decision that instead of pitching a new show it makes more sense to use those funds to hire your essential non-creative roles or contract firms or freelancers.

paying staff a fair wage with benefits speaks highly of what watcher wants their values to be. it's hard to find such a position in a creative role and still actually get to work on things you care about. but it would be much worse if watcher didn't make realistic decisions about finances and it lead to the death of the company and everyone losing their jobs. the whole watcher company can work, in my opinion, but not without some sacrifices. they're going to have to run it more like a business and less like a youtube-channel-turned-business in the future if they want to survive.

last thing i'll add is that while i do think this was a good apology video, i still think they hurt themselves by not putting out some sort of statement on Friday or Saturday just to say that they were formulating a response. As i've said in other posts, it's ok and in fact beneficial to not make a kneejerk reaction, but it's also very important to communicate that you SEE what's happening. you SEE what people are saying and THAT'S why you need more time to respond. saying nothing and leaving the angry public to wonder if you dropped your phone off the Hoover Dam or just don't care? that's a fumble. it's a common mistake companies make in a crisis, but that doesn't mean it doesn't erode trust fast.

this could have been handled better in many ways. we see that, and i'm glad watcher says they see that too. crucial going forward is taking all this and patching the errors that caused all this to fall apart and learning from the experience.

tbh at this point what i'm most sad about is that the watcher crew have probably been too stressed out and upset to appreciate some of the absolute bangers people have been laying down to clown on them. i think if it wasn't about them they might be touched by the collective attitude and creative spirit. /j

[animentality]

not to be a boomer, but I do worry about the current generation of kids being raised with iPads.

first off. some of them literally can't hold a pencil because their parents never gave them physical toys to grip and play with, developing their fine motor skills.

you might ask why do we even need to learn how to write physically anymore- well, frankly, because if you're stranded on an island somewhere and you need to write HELP, you might not have the strength to hold a pencil, but you can at least hold a stick.

but on a more general note.

writing by hand helps you remember things better. it forces you to focus in a way that typing something word for word does not. a person can transcribe what a professor says without even thinking about it.

someone writing notes has to consider what to write and what to omit. it also activates more parts of your brain, forcing you to flex the parts of your brain related to learning and communicating, while also engaging the part of your brain dedicated to muscle control and precision.

but in general, I think the issue isn't even oh technology is bad and kids are getting dumber.

you can have PowerPoints AND take physical notes. that could help you learn even better than the olden days where you just had to remember everything that was thrown at you. or read very limited, out of date books.

the problem is that the generation that raised/is raising this generation of children just doesn't understand the true impact that all this technology will have on their kids. or they just don't care.

because our generation had the internet yes, but it wasn't widely accessible for most of us, sharing our computers with the entire family in the kitchen. it was also the internet in its infancy, where it wasn't quite so predatory, when it was lawless and disturbing, yes, but it wasn't weaponized by corporations trying to sell you things and steal your data, it wasn't flooded with bots and ai and all sorts of things that the human brain can't even distinguish as real or fake, especially when you're just a little kid.

that generation still played with physical toys. we celebrated when it snowed and we could stay home.

we also came from a gen that still, vaguely, cared about some form of community and had third spaces for kids to hang out.

90s children, who still had some memories of both playing outside on a playground and playing Mario Kart on the Nintendo 64 with their friends, who both went out to the mall and had a club penguin account.

we grew up with laptops and smart boards. maybe some of us had them in high school or college, but we still physically went to class and developed relationships. learned uncomfortable things about ourselves and others, the way humans do.

met new people and were exposed to new ideas, away from our parents. but not from some fucking influencer trying to sell us Sephora products.

we had to study for things, instead of just being able to Google shit for some bullshit online test.

which is also something that really concerns me. so many kids today can so easily Google answers for every test, and while tests don't ultimately matter in the real world, they still provide some basis for things that do matter.

like I'm just imagining medical students googling how to perform an appendectomy on the day of, and just using a YouTube tutorial to guide them through, and shuddering.

there are some things that the Internet can't teach you.

there always will be.

but I don't think my generation is really helping their kids find the balance that we were given naturally growing up.

the boomers and gen xers had fist fights and we had bullying someone online until they committed suicide.

and now kids use AI to spread fake nudes of girls.

but the laws haven't caught up with a lot of this stuff yet, and certainly won't while we have dinosaurs running our government. and culture takes even longer to change than laws.

I also worry because I know how badly covid affected kids worldwide. how they struggle to read and do math, because remote learning just isn't good for kids.

and I can't even blame them!! I literally teleworked for 4 years and even I can admit that I'm not nearly as good at focusing at home as I am in the office.

it's hard for kids with social anxiety and disabilities, yes I know, I know, trust me, I have social anxiety, and as a hybrid worker ATM, I highly doubt I'd be able to handle 5 days a week in the office.

but it's also not particularly good for kids to stay home ALL the time, entertaining themselves in their room and never being challenged, and never meeting people other than their parents.

the iPad is more of a symbol of that problem than the direct problem.

if your entire... world view is limited to what you can see on your iPad... I mean what a terrible world view you'll have.

you're a 10 year old using TikTok and all you ever see is the same opinion over and over until you can scarcely comprehend people who have an opposing opinion.

you see fake videos that seem so real. that must be real, and so comforting, aren't they, those videos that seem so real?

you let 30 year old influencers who are trying to grift people shape your world view.

and it's not even your fault.

your parents aren't doing anything to help you.

you're young and you're being barraged with entertainment and fake educational videos and how to guides that accidentally create mustard gas in your toilet.

your parents should be teaching you to find a balance between these things. they should be telling you what's real and caution you about the things you see.

they should limit your fucking time on the iPad actually. take you to a fucking park and let you roll in the mud or some shit.

and then when you're a teenager and a young adult, then you can start deciding for yourself what you believe.

but a lot of these weird millennial/gen z parents, man. just let your 1 year old scroll through vids on TikTok while you don't even talk to them or look at them once.

maybe it's because they don't see the harm in it, but I don't get it.

adults can watch TikTok all day and know, ahhh this is bad for me. I'm not doing anything I actually want to be doing.

adults can see other adults doing dumb shit and say ah you're sponsored. someone paid you money to say and do that. silly.

but kids are just kids.

they don't have discipline and frankly, that's not their responsibility. that is yours.

you should be teaching them that they can't have everything in life at their finger tips at all times, actually.

the iPad doesn't solve all of your problems, nor will it think critically for you.

so I worry about if humanity can really keep up with its own technology.

our species is still in its infancy, believe it or not.

so maybe these are just growing pains, and future generations will be able to look back on this era and know the proper balance.

but as someone living in 2024.

I wonder just how much pain is left before we really mature and either make it or break it.

[sirfrogsworth]

Froggie's (Almost) Very Productive Day

I try to fit as many out-and-about chores as possible into a single day so I only have one set of post-exertional malaise consequences instead of consequences after each day of doing a thing. So any time I decide to drive, I try to find several tasks to accomplish all at once.

My first stop was the Family Services Division in the hopes of getting some help with grocery bills. I am making ends meet, but it seems to be getting harder each month. And maybe I could have skipped my trip to Florida and saved that money, but if I don't do something drastic for my mental health, I fear this first holiday season without a parent could send me into the darkness.

I needed to do an interview to finish applying for SNAP. I wanted to do a phone interview, but the next appointment was in January. So I went to social services where they allow walk-in appointments. I waited in a tiny plastic chair for several hours until they called my name. She yelled out "Benjamin" because when most people see "Grelle" they aren't really sure how to say it. (Rhymes with belly.)

She started my interview and it was going swimmingly at first. But then she started asking questions about the house and my inheritance and my trust. I had no idea what to tell her. It feels like a mistake now, but I have had pretty much no involvement in that process. I have no idea how it works. And I started to panic because she was acting like I was committing fraud or something by not mentioning the trust. But the entire point of the trust was to protect my benefits. Nothing is mine. I own nothing. I have no access. But I had no idea how to explain that.

Maybe my lawyer can help me apply, but I did not want them investigating everything and screwing things up before we even have the estate through probate. We specifically hired a lawyer and went through this convoluted process to make sure everything was on the up and up. But she really made me feel like I was doing something wrong. And that made me panic, which probably made me look even more guilty of something. So I just canceled everything and left.

After a few hours in a crowded government office, I decided to head to a different crowded government office.

I know I didn't need it until 2025, but I decided to go ahead and get my Real ID thingie before my first flight. I was kind of hoping they'd retake my picture because my current driver's license is... well...

And I'm so glad they took my big terrible picture and made it into a smaller, more terrible picture.

People complain about the DMV, but the one near me runs like a machine. It was filled with people and I still only had a 10 minute wait time.

I'm starting to wonder if all of those 80s comedians who were all, "What's the deal with the DMV?" were exaggerating.

Good stuff, Jerry.

I head up to the counter and ask for a Real ID. She asks for two pieces of mail and my birth certificate.

And this disappointed me a little bit.

I did my research. I went to the Real ID website and used their interactive guide to figure out exactly which documents I would need. They gave me this entire checklist and I printed it out and went through all my records and mail trying to find everything.

I had to wait a week for my internet bill to come because it's the only thing I forgot to change to paperless. This took a lot of effort and I was ready to be validated for being so prepared.

And she asks for two pieces of mail.

Any mail.

So I was off to get new tires.

Driving around on 8 year old bald tires was giving me anxiety. I didn't have the money for new tires, but I remember the guy saying they had financing. Recently several of my past debts went past the statute of limitations, and so my credit score lifted itself out of the pits of "poor" and into the realm of "fair." So I decided to take a chance and apply for a Discount Tire credit card. It's a 6 month payment plan with no interest, so that didn't feel as predatory as all the credit card offers I get in the mail with 8000% interest.

We started going through the approval process and I was answering all of the questions and then I saw the name of the bank offering the credit. It was the same bank that tried to sue me and also the bank that can longer collect due to the statute. I was worried they put me on some sort of list and would deny me. But, to my surprise, they approved me instantly. And wouldn't you know it, they gave me almost exactly the amount needed for a new set of tires.

I'm hoping we'll be doing another auction of the house stuff soon, so I plan to pay off the card and then cancel it, but this was the only solution I could come up with to drive safely until then.

I was having a weird day where photos of crusty rich wide dudes followed me everywhere I went. Here is my good ol' boy governor at the entrance to social services.

And at the tire place, I noticed this fella...

Why does every rich CEO think they are a font of wisdom capable of creating compelling quotes?

Does he think no one has ever said "work hard" and "have fun"? And after he said this was he like...

"That's gold, put that in *every* store."

"Oh, and use that picture of me where it looks like a handsome gal just grabbed my undercarriage."

He probably thinks, "Well, no one has put these specific generic platitudes together into a single mega-platitude. I am a genius."

"Be honest, work hard, have fun, be grateful, pay it forward" sounds like he had a bunch of motivational posters on his wall and started reading them all at once.

Like, every line could have a picture of an eagle above it.

In any case, the guy at the tire store, Dakota, was really nice. He made the experience very low anxiety. And he really liked my Thor's Hammer keychain with built in fidget spinner.

He went around showing it to all his coworkers. "Look, it even spins!" And they were like, "Dude, where did you get that??" And I was like, "Amazon." Now I'm just imagining 10 dudes at a tire store all fidgeting their hammers.

As nice as he was, Dakota was still a salesman and had a job to do. He gave me two tire options and tried to upsell me. The cheapest tires had a "1" rating for winter. He said they get "super hard" in the cold... I tried not to giggle. But I explained I drive about twice a month and mostly to the grocery store. If it is a bad winter day, I'll just wait or get delivery. He understood and set me up with the cheaper tires.

He then checked out my car and noticed my tire pressure sensors were dying. I keep getting a warning light on my dash. Apparently they all have tiny batteries in them that die after 7 years. And you can't just replace the batteries so you have to install brand new sensors.

And this is where my social anxiety got me into trouble.

I don't actually need these sensors. They are usually inaccurate. I prefer to test my tires with an actual gauge. But I got so caught up in his sales pitch that I agreed to replace them... at $60 each. For that I could have gotten the fancier tires. I really don't care if an orange light shows up on my dash. And I looked up the price online and a pack of 4 is $30. Though that is without installation.

But still... I wasn't thinking and he was so nice that I was just like, "I want to please Dakota. Saying no might make Dakota sad." Dakota's job is selling me but that doesn't mean I have to buy anything. He would live if I had said "no thanks."

To make my blunder more blunderous, when they finished the tires he asked for my key fob. And it decided that was the time for the battery to die. And in order to reset the system for the new tire pressure sensors, you have to press two buttons on the fob for 7 seconds. Thankfully I had a spare fob at home, but if I want my fancy new $240 sensors to work, I have to return to Dakota and have him initialize them.

I really hope these are the Cadillac of sensors.

Or, like, the ones they use on Cadillacs?

They better be accurate, is what I'm saying.

I do feel safer with new tires. So I am glad I did that. And I gave them a good obligatory kick and felt the tread. They seem nice enough even if they get boners in the winter. It's crazy how bald my other tires were in comparison. Like, I can fit half my finger down into the tread on the new ones—which did not get them super hard.

The way I drive, I probably won't wear them down. They'll probably start to rot before I do.

Before I do, meaning before I wear them down.

Not before I rot.

I am not in a rotting competition with my tires.

I was then off to Sam's. I decided all of my hard work accomplishing 2 out of 3 goals deserved some sushi. So I grabbed some California Rolls and headed home. On my way out, a Hummer and a Porsche nearly collided in the parking lot. And they sort of got stuck facing each other. One of them needed to back up and they both signaled at each other like "You back up, I'm not backing up." And it was just this weird standoff between the two douchiest looking cars you could imagine.

I mean, you have to be a douche to drive a Hummer.

I still remember the mystery Hummer dialysis patient from when my dad was going 3 time per week. We could never figure out who owned the Hummer, but we knew it was not the underpaid nurses and techs. So it had to be one of the patients. And none of them seemed the type. We never solved that mystery.

That hummer started off a delightful safety yellow. (Elon would cry.)

They decided this wasn't extra enough... so they did this...

Katrina and I could never decide... are these cow spots or the world's least effective camoflauge?

There was another patient who drove this old beater...

And I loved seeing this car because we had the same one when I was a little kid. I'm afraid the aesthetics of the 1980s Caprice Classic did not stand the test of time, but it had great sentimental appeal for me.

But this maroon beast that squeaked and sputtered its way from here to there belonged to a very sweet older gentleman. Sometimes he and my dad would be dialysis buddies—sitting next to each other in the recliners. And the worst thing about dialysis was the boredom. All you have to do is watch broadcast TV with 4 channels.

All of the TVs require headphones. They give you your own set of super cheap headphones in the dialysis welcome bag. They were very uncomfortable so I ordered my dad better ones with cushioned ear cups.

His dialysis buddy noticed them and thought they looked nice. And then he revealed that his free headphones broke and he didn't know how to get new ones. He had been watching TV with no sound for weeks. So, I bought another pair with the soft ear cups and my dad gave them to his friend. And it just made me happy imagining the two of them watching The Price is Right in matching headphones.

I do have to make fun of this sweet old man a little bit. When I walked passed his car I noticed he implemented the world's most effective anti-theft device ever created.

That's right... The Club™.

If someone decides they have to have a 40 year old car with an engine that sounds like a dying hyena and a hubcap missing... they are out of luck.

But hey, you gotta protect what is important to you. And if I needed a getaway car and my choices were between his beater and the Cow Hummer, I'd take his ride for sure.

Well, I'd try... and then get arrested because The Club™ is undefeatable.

Do NOT look that up on YouTube. It's 100% true. (And the Lock Picking Lawyer doesn't count due to him being able to break into Fort Knox with a paperclip and then doing it again to make sure it isn't a fluke.)

The dialysis center is in the same complex as my local Tolerable Schnucks and I still see that maroon boat of a car every once in a while. I always smile whenever it is there because it lets me know he is hanging in there and hopefully still has sound for his TV.

Wow, I went off on a mega-tangent.

I didn't even finish talking about my day. Where was I? Oh, the douche standoff finally ended. The Porsche Douche capitulated and backed up. Probably due to the fact the Hummer Douche has 0 visibility behind him.

When I got home I started devouring my sushi. I finally heard back from my lawyer. He submitted the last of the evidence for my appeal. And I was finally able to confirm he got the records of my ECT treatments from 20 years ago. I worked so hard to get those. At first, they forgot to send all records before 2011. I had to call back and figure that out. They shipped them and they didn't arrive until a week before we had to file. Everything was so last minute and my anxiety has been... palpable. It felt like when I did my science fair project on Sunday night.

He's hoping to get a decision at the beginning of next year. He warned me that these appeals are usually rejected. And that the most effective method of approval was a hearing in front of an administrative law judge. But that could be delayed by up to a year. So I might need to figure out how to survive until 2025. As long as my brother does what he is legally required to do, I should be okay. But counting on that also gives me palpable anxiety.

And that was my day.

Every time I go out is always an adventure.

But remember...

BE NICE. EAT YOUR VEGGIES. PET CUTE DOGS. DREAM BIG. KEEP YOUR TIRES WARM... FOR REASONS. 5 LIFE LESSONS -Froggie, Mildly Famous Internet Person

[bloggingboutburgers]

Am gonna miss the kinda content you had before. I know you’re v happy and good for you! But this blog used to be a rare piece of internet haven that wasn’t about relationships and dating and marriage. Now it is. That’s obviously my problem. I get it - your blog, your life. Am just sad is all.

Sorry if my recent life news made things scary – but I assure you, I don't plan to make my stuff about dating and marriage from now on! (Relationships in itself is a tricky one, since technically "relationships" is every single type of rapport a human being can have with another imo, but I don't plan to start talking about romantic relationships either, I have no idea how those work.)

Yeah, I'm planning to get married – but not with a romantic partner, with my queerplatonic partner. Considering the nature of our relationship I myself sometimes have trouble even saying we're "dating" because it's something different (though we do call our video call "dates", I'll give ya that). But even if they're not "my whole life" in a romantic sense, I really like spending time with them, we're oceans apart so we don't get to do so very often, and during and after the pandemic, the US placed a ban on my country that made it near-impossible for me to visit them for almost 2 years, and being scared of never being able to spend time with them again broke my brain really bad, so I vowed to take measures so this never happens again. So yeah, i'm planning to get married, but it's more out of necessity, as this is seemingly the only way we could stay in the same area permanently and the only way we could counter a travel ban like that if it happens again for any reason (as only spouses or direct relatives were allowed to visit each other back then). I hate that it means doing the thing© amatonormativity and archaic socail rules seem to push people to do all the time, but international rules are a bitch like that, so we don't have many more other options.

That said – my content already included stuff I do with my partner before, and our relationship isn't changing because we're engaged – we're still never gonna have sex, and I'm still not romantically attracted to them nor have I ever been. But I do like them a lot as a queerplatonic partner, and I wanna vibe the way I show us vibing and get to do so on a daily basis, not every 6 to 9 months and breaking bank every time I do.

So... Yeah, despite the surface value of the whole thing, I don't think being engaged makes me a counter-example. If anything I guess we'll be rep for a queerplatonic relationship that involves marriage, and we'll see how that works (if our respective governments even LET us get married at all). My views on my sexual and romantic orientations haven't changed and I don't intend to change my content any time soon. I'll keep being annoying to everyone about how the world doesn't need sex and romance for a long time if people will have me, cus I have way too much of a chip on my shoulder not to.

[solarpunkani]

That screenshot from mysharona1987 saying the IDF has killed more UN staff than Hamas terrorists is disinformation.

The type of disinformation you are most likely to share is the kind that supports your personal beliefs. If you believe Israelis are violent bloodthirsty savages, you will reblog disinformation supporting that view. If you believe Zionists run the world, you will reblog disinformation supporting that conspiracy theory.

Disinformation about Israel actually harms Palestinians. Maybe you think it might help somehow for people to spread false stories about Israel. I promise you it does not help.

All of us who use the internet as a platform need to take responsibility for disinformation. It's a shared responsibility. When you don't do your share, it makes the internet that much harder to manage for the rest of us.

Read this article titled "This Psychologist Wants To Vaccinate You Against Fake News": https://archive.ph/671NK

Read this article: https://www.fastcompany.com/90983392/why-disinformation-experts-says-the-israel-hamas-conflict-is-a-nightmare-to-investigate

And play this game: https://www.getbadnews.com/en/intro

In total, reading the two articles and playing the game shouldn't take more than 45 minutes. Take the time to do this.

I will say, I did read the articles and played the game earlier today. I am answering this ask to let you know that, anon, because I genuinely appreciated the reads

With that being said. I’m not quite understanding how its misinfo? I feel I’ve seen lots of sources saying Israel has killed lots of UN staffers, not just that one.

Also to establish for the onlookers. I don’t believe Israelis are all bloodthirsty savages, and I don’t believe that Zionists run the world. If I’ve said or reblogged anything that gave that impression, my sincere apologies.

With that being said some of the stuff coming out about Israel’s government and some of the videos of some Israelis (emphasis on *some*) is fucking rancid as hell

[creekfiend]

Hey, do you have family in Israel? Do you know whether they are alright?

sure, I do. in my experience most American Jews have family in Israel. When my family left their village in what is now Belarus, half of those leaving came to the US and half went to Palestine. (and those who remained were killed and that village does not exist anymore) I am not in close contact with the Israeli side but I expect I would have heard something if any of them had been hurt. Josh has much closer Israeli family as his brother Yoav and nieces/nephews all live there but they are also fine to my knowledge.

I appreciate the check in, but I will be perfectly honest with you that while it hurts my heart immensely that so many Israeli civilians have been killed, right now I am primarily concerned about the millions of people in Gaza without electricity or running water who have been ordered to evacuate or get exploded but who have nowhere to go. I am very, VERY concerned about the statements being made by the garbage fascists in control of the Israeli government right now openly stating their genocidal intentions on a scale that we haven't previously seen.

we are all triggered and traumatized as hell about everything, and by we I mean Jews, and I think it's understandable for us to feel that way. but I also am struggling a lot with the degree to which many of my fellow American Jews are making this ABOUT our big feelings of fear and anxiety. I understand that anticipating things becoming More Dangerous is something all Jews have had to do constantly forever. I understand that "position of relative privilege" is something that's extremely conditional for Jews and something that can be taken away at the drop of a hat. but... I don't know. I've been trying to think of anything coherent or helpful in any way to say for the past several days and coming up short. it's a nightmare. But it would be disingenuous to deny that it's a nightmare for me in ways that are removed pretty significantly from the ways in which it is a nightmare for other people.

my family is fine. I understand and empathize with the sentiments of "but what if my family becomes NOT fine?" especially when this is the largest mass killing of Jewish civilians since... well. and I am also enraged and terrified by the comfort with which many leftist gentiles seem to be practically celebrating those deaths. but I'm really preoccupied by the fact that millions of people and their families in Gaza are Not Fine in a huge and terrible way right now as we speak. this is not to say that it is a contest, but if I am doing triage, it is very clear to me whose leg is more broken right now. While acknowledging, again, that we are in a scary place globally regarding antisemitism.

Angry Jew on fb has been posting a lot of stuff that really speaks to how I am feeling right now. devastated by the horrible ways some of my people have been killed, and devastated also that inexcusable violence is being done, essentially, in my name. I hate to talk about this publicly because I also fucking wish American gentiles would kind of shut up about it a lot of the time, to be honest. and I hate feeling like I am giving anyone ammunition in their weird ideological internet fights about having The More Correct Opinion in the hypothetical trolley problem-ass situation that so many of them act like this is. the refusal to learn about any specifics of the situation in favor of just deciding it must be exactly like some other unrelated geopolitical issue that they feel they have a better handle on, and then just... overwriting the reality of the situation so that it matches up with what they are comfortable imagining in their heads. I have had to unfollow and block a lot of people lately.

I mostly talk to my safe Jewish and Muslim friends about this. and select few safe non-muslim gentiles.

Right now I am grieving for many reasons. Since you asked me about my personal connection I will tell you the main things I remember learning and feeling about this growing up. I've never been to Israel. Not close enough to my family there to visit, although my dad did, & never comfortable with programs like Birthright. I remember in the 90s my dad, who was an administrator at the school of Public Health at the local university, was helping put together programs that would bring Israeli and Palestinian universities and public health groups together to work on universal public health issues like helping ppl stop smoking, vaccination, etc. it was going really well at the time. he was going over there a few times a year to coordinate with the people running the programs there. he was really optimistic about it, & several other similar programs. this was back when Yasser Arafat and Yitzak Rabin/Shimon Peres were having a lot of talks that were seemingly productive and hopeful. like obviously it was hardly a golden age but it seemed like maybe Israel was moving away from violence. and then 9/11 happened and everything exploded and all the little programs simply disappeared and my dad never went back to work with anyone. and then fucjing... Netanyahu. and it seems like since then everything only gets worse and worse and further and further from anything other than horrible violence, and that devastates me

In high school I took a Mideast Civ class and one of my fellow students was a kid whose parents had been expelled from Palestine during the war and fled to America. what I remember being struck by when he talked about this was how his family's story was so similar to my family's story and a deep sense of shame and anger that people who had undergone what my family had could then make his family undergo the same thing. That's still a pretty big part of how I feel. I don't accept that that kid's experience was necessary to keep me or my family safe.

I'm just a guy. I try my best to learn as much as I can and listen to a large variety of people connected to this so I can have a more holistic view of things. I'm not making this post rebloggable for obvious reasons but since it's here on my blog, for anyone reading who is also feeling despair, here's some organizations that are good to follow & support if you are able (non-exhaustive obviously)

synagoguesrising.org Synagogues Rising is a coalition of leftist synagogues in the US who advocate for Palestinian liberation and who are currently begging the US government to work to deescalate military violence and provide humanitarian aid to people in Gaza

refuser.org Refusers Solidarity Network is a group advocating for Israelis who refuse to serve in the military as conscientious objectors

map.org.uk Medical Aid for Palestinians living under occupation & as refugees

Genuinely, thanks for asking about my family. if you also have family in the area, I hope they are also alright.

I want everyone to be alright. I know this is a lot of big baby feelings and no particular political ideologies or solutions and that's because I'm just one fucking Jew and I'm not an activist or a revolutionary and I kind of feel a bit like other online people could stand to admit more often that they're also just some guy and also not activists or revolutionaries. I sure have beliefs and I sure feel strongly about them, but man, right now I just want to express grief & anger & worry about how awful this government is and how many people they're going to kill and how much I wish it was not happening

my family is Ok.

eta: I'm reading this back and realizing that as a response to this ask it makes it sound like I'm saying that inquiring about the well-being of someone's Israeli relatives is like, inherently devaluing the well-being of other ppl and I very much am not saying that and do not believe that. I'm just enormously emotionally dysregulated and this got me kind of stream of consciousness about all of the things I have been chasing around in my brain about this.

[featherwingfae]

Gonna try to make this a "Quick post".

(warning some light swearing)

Maybe, just maybe one of the reasons we're seeing so many new Therians nowadays is because humans have fucked up the earth so bad that the universe just went fuck it and threw in a bunch of nature brains to balance things out. People who wouldn't just be able to look at the devastation of wildlife and their homes and just move on like nothing happened. Because they can see themselves in those creatures, and it hurts them to know that they are suffering. And maybe if there's enough nature brains, seeing themselves in the withering world around them, then more and more people might stand up and say this isn't right. We need to fix this. And maybe in a human world where one of the most lovely traits of humanity is being able to work together a bunch of nature brains with human faces can make a difference. They say animals can't speak human. Well they can, and are. Maybe Therians are the voices of nature coming out from the wilds, to places and bodies where they're not comfortable, where the air is heavy with pollution and trash litters the ground. And they have to learn weird shit like math, and work exhausting jobs that are often just to pay the bills that allow them to keep surviving. All so that they can see the damage from the other side and better understand the problem and together find solutions to stop it.

I'm not saying humans (and others) can't and/or dont do anything. I'm saying it's harder to do nothing when you look at creatures suffering and see yourself. Empathy is a beautiful thing. It helps connect us. But in a world where almost no one can afford the barest minimum just to survive. Where finding happiness feels like a struggle because you're constantly grinding and pushing yourself beyond your mental, emotional and/or physical boundaries, how easy is it to just shut yourself off. To put on the blinders because you're stuck yourself and you don't feel like there's anything you can do, so why upset yourself further by caring. It's sad. Terribly sad. Soul crushingly, heart wrenchingly sad.

Most people nowadays suffer from anxiety, depression or some other mental illness. And yes those illnesses are more known and understood now, and are more easily diagnosed. But I think the reason we see them everywhere now, is as simple as everyone is suffering. The human world in its current state, is not a healthy place. Fun times are often merely distraction from the crushing reality around us. It hurts to accept how much hurt there is right now.

I'm not saying it's all on the shoulders of Therians. I'm not saying you have to quit your job or your school and run off into the wild picking up every piece of litter and chaining yourself to trees. That's not what this post is about.

This post is about the increase of Therians and my personal hypothesis as to why there's so many now. And it's as simple as this. One Therian does not shoulder all the burden of the earth. Just as one human does not. But if there are Therians in schools, going "hey look at this little/big guy isn't he cute/cool" showing their friends and classmates"it's so sad he's going extinct because his home is being destroyed" , Therians on trails, streets, beaches seeing litter and using just a little bit of their time to remove at least some of it. Therians in stores refusing to buy certain products because of animal cruelty/testing, Therians manifesting/praying to help even if it's just a little bit, Therians on the Internet/TV spreading awareness, Therians in government actually trying to do what's best for the environment and the people, instead of just what's best for their bank account etc etc.

In reference to that horrible math stuff, a million ones together doesn't equal nothing. No matter how small an act it still adds up to something. Therians everywhere means more people who can't forget, who can't move on, who can't just shutdown and hope for the best. People who feel like they have to do something. So they don't eventually see themselves disappear (go extinct).

The universe and the earth can sometimes have a funny way of balancing things out. Maybe Therians are one way to at least try regaining that balance.

I'm overjoyed to see more Therians. Because I feel like more Therians means more voices for nature, and more chances to save this beautiful planet ☺️✨🌍🌎🌏💚

Anyway that's my two cents. Sorry this post ended up being longer than I intended 😅

And now my fascinating and fantastic creatures, great and small, furry, feathered, scaled or whatever-ed, and all others of open mind who took time to read my ramblings, I wish upon you a most glorious day/night. May we all follow our hearts/souls to do what we feel we can for this magnificent planet. ✨

👁️🪽✨🌟🌱❄️🪻🍀🌎🍄🌹💚🌍🌵🌈⛈️🌠🦊🐁💙

Till next time

[nabulsi]

what are some misconceptions and/or myths about hamas stuff that people can be aware about? I'm gonna be honest I don't know alot about hamas related stuff and I hear some people on the internet say that they are a horrible terrorist organization that did horrible stuff and then there are some that say that they aren't a terrorist organization and then some say that they are antisemitic because of their old charter and some say they arent because of the 2017 charter, it kinda feels conflicting.

Hello! I am sorry this has been sitting in my inbox for a few days and I've debated how exactly I wanted to answer it because I can admit that I'm not the most knowledgeable about the topic.

I can see that you've already read conflicting accounts about Hamas from others and many different perspectives. All I can do is give you my own perspective, as nuanced as I can. Though, I am speaking as a Palestinian and what the truth is to me, with my experience.

But also, I don't want to do your thinking for you. Please consider my flawed and biased answers and do some research on this yourself.

Are they a terrorist organization?

This depends on who's defining it as a terrorist organization. Hamas is, according to western entities such as the US and the UN, a terrorist organization. It has been recognized as such. However it is also important to keep in mind, who is defining it as a terrorist organization and why they are defining it as such. Remember that the west is comprised of many current and former colonial entities which have an allyship with the current colonial entity of Israel. And, in threatening Israel, Hamas has made itself an enemy of the West. From the Palestinian perspective, Hamas is the government of Gaza. They, and other armed resistance groups operating in the area, are Gazans' first line of defense against Israeli aggression and oppression. Individual Palestinians may have varied opinions on Hamas, what they stand for, and their methods. Of course they are not universally liked--just as a citizen of any other entity may oppose their government. Against Israeli oppression, Palestinians stand together, however. And in my perspective, they are not a terrorist group.

2. Did they do horrible stuff?

That's vague, so I'll try to make it less vague so I can give you some form of answer. There are a few things people have accused Hamas of. Some of the more horrific things have not been verified or confirmed. And some have been retracted and not confirmed. (source / source / source) The big one, though, is did they really kill over 1000 Israelis and take hundreds of hostages? Yeah. Probably. Though Israel has been trying to quash an interview with rescued hostage, Yasmin Porat, who claimed that it is quite possible IDF killed many of the Israeli citizens as they shot indiscriminately at hostages and Hamas alike. And many of the deaths were IDF who are, quite frankly, valid targets. Not to mention, many former hostages have been reporting humane treatment by Hamas. (source / source / source) That's not to say that Hamas does not have blood on their hands. Hamas did at one point, to great condemnation from the Palestinian community, claim they would start executing hostages. To my knowledge, though, they never followed through.

3. Are Hamas antisemitic?

This is like a few questions baked into one. Was the attack on October 7th antisemitic in nature? Definitely not. That was a coordinated and organized operation with the express purpose of striking a blow to Israel as an occupying force and furthering the Palestinian liberation efforts. Hamas did not go in there with the aim of killing Jews. (And remember that the occupiers of Palestinian land ARE Jewish, so it's not like they had non-Jewish targets here.) Is Hamas as an organization antisemitic? Also no. Hamas's old charter was antisemitic. It did not make a distinction between Jewish people and Zionists. The new charter has been rewritten to make that distinction really clearly. I don't see a reason not to believe they are operating under different principles from before, as they are already considered a terror group, not like they're trying to change to "appeal to western sensibilities" If you don't want to take them at their word that's your call. Are the members of Hamas antisemitic? Allah only knows what's in their hearts. But I will answer: No more than anyone else on this Earth. Antisemitism is unfortunately a global issue and exists in every community. Hamas are not exempt from this. That doesn't excuse any antisemitism, but I do want to emphasize, that they're not like... exceptionally antisemitic. Also remember that accusations of antisemitism are constantly being weaponized against Palestinians in general, not just Hamas, so think critically when you see such accusations.

[wist-eri]

i’m not really sure about what KOSA does to censor the internet. what exactly is there to it? i’ve heard a lot of awareness posts about it but not about what it actually does

i’m just going to copy-paste and slightly edit a previous reblog i made. though i’m not too sure how completely accurate this is, hopefully this can be of help if anyone wants a bit more info or wants to write a letter on their own:

——

basically, they’re forcing companies to limit certain content based on age and what could be considered dangerous to minors. they do somewhat give examples of what’s “mature content” but 1. they’re incredibly vague and 2. they open up for many other interpretations.

they also give the state attorney general the right to file a civil lawsuit against companies they think is infringing on this and showing minors “mature content.” however, this also means that this is completely up to the state attorney + state court’s interpretation, which can VERY EASILY be influenced by personal and political views. aka, a lot of LGBTQ information and other resources can be easily censored if the state deems it unnecessary for minors (and if the state court agrees with that belief). if one state does that successfully, it causes a ripple effect. aka, this can literally lead to censorship and the bill is straight up allowing that interpretation.

and another qualm i have with the bill (other than just the censorship part): the bill also states that they want ways to verify a user’s age so that they can filter content properly. however, the only way that’s truly foolproof is LITERAL GOVERNMENT IDS. this basically means that your personal information is collected by a “covered company” (the term they use for social media platforms and stuff) and used for age verification. let me tell you i don’t think that’s a good idea AT ALL. it compromises everyone’s security, not just minors. like, what are they gonna do in the case of a data leak / security breach? how many people will have their personal information revealed and taken advantage of?

KOSA is a trojan horse with a LOT of consequences. it’s way too risky to implement into congress at this current stage, unless either of these problems can be solved through amending the bill or just straight up not approving it entirely.

ALSO: the bill is currently introduced in the SENATE and is being contemplated over. however, there’s still a lot the bill needs to do before it passes into law (house of representatives, president, etc) aka, do not stop expressing how DANGEROUS this bill is, in the case it’s passed in the senate. keep talking when it’s in the house of representatives. do what you can

THIS TOO: (https://www.stopkosa.com/)

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I the AH for refusing to be friends with someone who flat out hated me?

From ages 22-26 I was friends with R 29-33. R had only worked once in her life which was mcdonalds for 3 months to buy anime merchandise her grandma didn't want to buy her. R's grandma is in her late 80's now just for reference. R's granny had married a rich military dude who was on his 3rd marriage or so then died, so she got all his assets which included like 5 houses, 3 were being rented out which is how she'd get her income. So R never worked and just sat at home getting into internet fights. My friend had invited her into our discord and I'd be civil with her despite knowing how shes been with others. I was working full time for shit pay and going to school full time too. R was very, idk how else to say it, but she always demanded our attention. The other people in the server were 5 from ages from 16-22, we never used how much older she was against her, but she really didn't acknowledge or respect alot of us were in school. Many times we'd had to tell her to step back and set boundaries with us. It did result in people leaving the server. So, in summer of 2019 R decided to go to college. She got alot of financial aid and said her goal was to become a therapist cause she was everyone's "mom". That stuff wasn't even remotely true, she was always a total bitch to everyone. R unfortunately didn't understand that going to school means having to put the work in. She was more interested in spending the financial aid on gacha, anime merch, and other stuff. She lost her financial aid after the spring semester of 2020, and refused to talk to her school about the pandemic stress and other shit. During this time, she tried making me do her assignments and I kept saying no or only helped a little. I had my own assignments, school, and I was stressed. Well, when she lost her financial aid due to academic probation, she blamed me. When the pandemic hit my school did this thing where you'd get partially refunded your semester depending on how you did. I was so thankful for that since I barely scraped by to pay for school. R was so fucking nasty about it. I didn't tell my friends that to gloat, I actually said that before she lost her financial aid. She said I didn't deserve it, cause people like her struggled more. Which is fucking weird since I'm a first gen POC and made a few bucks above minimum wage where I live. I didn't even enjoy my time at school cause of the stress and never having money. So she kept harassing me for getting government aid. I wasn't eligible for financial aid! My parents weren't even eligible for food stamps and we always fucking struggled. But I didn't deserve help, who cares if R is a cis white woman in her 30's that only worked once for a few months, she has it harder. Then R left our server when the pandemic started getting nastier, alot of us struggled but we stayed close in the discord. Then one day I reached out to R in late 2021 to say happy birthday and she said "whose this? New phone." I was hurt she didn't keep my number, but whatever. In 2022 she reached out to me for gossip cause I broke up with someone. Then now in 2023 she reached out cause she wants resources to be a vtuber. I'm sorry, she was shitty to me, I've been struggling, and she reaches out for that? Idk even know how I'd be able to help her with that. I told a friend from our old server and she told me how she had been doing R's assignments for school, but stopped cause she was getting stressed cause she had her capstone class that semester. So wow. R basically didn't do shit for school and gets pissy i get some financial relief. I then had another mutual friend tell me how R had told them she sent me a gift and I didn't send her one, one year. Uh? I tried. I ordered something online for her, and the company sold out, but kept my shit on back order. So R got it like a month late, it was a Christmas gift and I explained it to her, sent her screenshot of when i placed the order and sent her an Amazon gift card as an apology. So she bad mouths me for something out of my control?

I've been getting "hey" messages from R lately, and idk. I'm so done with her.

What are these acronyms?

[mbta-unofficial]

So you want to fix ya City, do ya?

Local activism works better and faster than any other kind, because you don’t need to go as far to get results.

If you want to understand how to make change, here are some steps.

1. Pick a Lane

Your energy is finite. One issue that gets the lions share of it will make way more difference than a lot of blogging and not a lot else about everything. Whatever your lane is, try to pick it thoughtfully and stick with it. A local issue will be way more moveable than a remote one, but the internet can be used to raise money for anything so it doesn’t need to be next door.

You’re gonna worry about other stuff. That’s ok. Let someone else handle it.

2. Lay of the Land

You are not the first person to look at this problem. Organizations exist to take this on, and the knowledge they have is indispensable to your goals. Your first step should be to be to find them: you don’t have to reinvent the wheel here. If you have a local newspaper, read it. If you don’t, go to your city’s reddit page and see where they get their info.

All Cities have an MPO or Metropolitan Planning organization. These are non-profits (usually) who advise the government on a variety of issues. Sign up for their newsletter. Find out when their next meeting is. Go.

Your issue will probably have an activist council, such as the MBTA ROC for transit advocates. Sign up for their newsletter. Find out when their next meeting is. Go.

Your city will likely have public meetings on the subject you are interested in. Find out when they are. Go.

If these aren’t relevant to your issue, you can go find other sources of information but you should try to find

a) a place where you can be in a real room with real people, or at least a zoom room. Watching videos and posting doesn’t count. Twitch streams are borderline, more than 200 or so viewers is just noise.

b) A place with a variety of ages. Old folks know things. they’ve been around the block. Young people have fresh perspectives and lots of energy. A room with just one is unlikely to produce a good plan of action

c) A place with racial and gender diversity. Boys’ clubs are common in politics, as are white only conversations about politics. The city is for everyone, and if you don’t have a diverse movement you will inevitably cater to the interests of your most powerful ally instead of helping everyone.

If you can’t find a meeting that meets these criteria, see if you can change the meeting that exists before starting your own. Institutional weight is invaluable and starting from scratch is possible but a challenge.

When you are at these meetings, do not worry about not understanding technical language. Take notes (or don’t) and google later. You are there to see, and also to be seen, because if you consistently attend public meetings you will recognize the same people there, and they will recognize you. Ask questions if you are given the opportunity but remember that you don’t need to understand everything right away and you will learn more by listening than by guessing.

You are there to make friends and learn, because you can’t do it alone.

3. Planning an action

If you have an idea for something that would help your cause, write it down. Then find out if someone else has already done it. (They almost certainly have.)

Make a list of steps. Ask your new friends about the steps. Revise your list of steps based on that feedback. You should do this at least once, no first draft is perfect. Assess how feasible the steps are. Replace any step that is impossible with an possible alternative. Give yourself twice as much time, money, and help as you think you’ll need. Review your steps.

Start stepping.

Be prepared to throw the steps out, but know that if you do because you had to, you will still have the time, money, and support that you budgeted. If you have to throw the steps out, make new ones. Keep going.

4. Post-op

You did it! You made it to the end of your steps. Get your friends to assess your work for you, and weigh their answers seriously. The problem is probably not gone, but it should be better. More importantly, you have built a system of people capable of carrying out an action. You know more, you are better connected. Go back to step 2. There is always more to learn, and that’s beautiful.