thomfeav - Tumblr blog

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iykyk-

For example, if you're speaking to a receptionist at a medical practice or calling idk your insurance company

I was going to specify "the first time" but then I realized I'm actually more likely to spell my name automatically if I know they're looking it up in a set of records

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goyishe tumblr leftists seeing a quote from the torah: wow. i can’t believe they fucking mentioned israel. kind of problematic. fucking zionists.

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mormons undoubtedly in the top 5 worst things the united states has ever invented which is really saying something

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Chidi vs. Tahani: Intentions or Consequences?

Cool thing I’ve noticed on what is probably my 50th rewatch of The Good Place:

(I love ethics and I’m fascinated by The Good Place so this is gonna be a long one!)

One of the big questions ethicists and moral philosophers ask is intentions vs. consequences. Does the morality of an action depend on the consequences from it, the intentions behind it, or some combination of the two? Different schools of thought give different answers. So for example consequentialist theories, like utilitarianism, hold that the only thing that matters is the consequences of an action, how much good vs. bad they do in the world. Your intentions don’t matter, and could be selfish or corrupt so long as the action is a net good. For virtue ethics, intentions matter more because what makes an action ethical is how it develops your character and makes you a better person. So an action with negative consequences but good intentions is not necessarily unethical, but doing good with selfish motives is unethical.

The interesting thing I’ve noticed in The Good Place is how that question of intentions vs. actions is reflected in the characters, specifically Chidi vs. Tahani.

In season 1, we’re meant to think we really are in the Good Place, and that Chidi and Tahani are among the best people who ever lived. But early on we’re introduced to a tension in the logic of The Good Place: It doesn’t give a consistent answer to the question of intentions vs. consequences. 

Tahani is “British and condescending” but made it to the good place because she did a stunning amount of philanthropy. Meanwhile Chidi is a moral philosopher who spent his life trying to act ethically, but he’s a miserable mess as a result, he can’t do anything. Basically, Tahani is all actions with no good intentions, and Chidi is all good intentions and no action. And yet by the rules of the “Good Place” they both supposedly qualify. If Tahani qualifies on her actions alone, then how can Chidi qualify when he’s never done anything in his life? And if Chidi qualifies based on his good intentions, how can Tahani qualify when she never cared about the people she helped? It’s one of the many clever details that the show includes to hint from the very beginning that something isn’t right here.

Eventually we learn that the point system takes both intentions and consequences into account, and so in theory, the amount of good caused by someone’s actions could outweigh their negative intentions, and vice versa, and earn them enough points. That’s how we get Mindy St. Clair. And the conclusion the show comes to is one that many of us instinctively have, I think: both intentions and consequences matter, and the degree to which they matter is context-specific. Good intentions don’t erase the harm your actions cause, but intentionally causing harm is worse. And doing good in the world and materially helping people is important, but having selfish motives for doing so detracts from that. To be ethical, your actions must have good intentions behind them and good consequences from them. That’s a lesson our characters learn many times in many different ways. 

Chidi and Tahani start the show off as polar opposites, pure intention vs. pure action. And as the show progresses they each develop the other side. For Chidi, becoming a better person means becoming more decisive and active, rather than being paralyzed by indecision. He actually does things to try and make the world around him better. By the midpoint of Season 1 he’s already storming into Michael’s office, demanding Eleanor not be sent away. At the end of his journey, he readily walks through the Door, without needing to know what’s on the other side. For Tahani, becoming a better person means shedding her need for attention and validation, and actually caring about the people around her and the world she lives in. Her actions become less and less about herself and more and more about helping other people. And at the end of her journey, she decides to spend eternity doing just that, designing afterlife tests to help more people get into the Good Place.

Also Eleanor and Jason kind of parallel that, where Eleanor is pure negative intention and Jason is pure negative action. Eleanor is just a kind of shitty, selfish person for most of her life, but she doesn’t do much, her actions aren’t great but they aren’t terrible. As she puts it, she was “a medium person.” Jason is a sweet little dum-dum bird, he has a good heart, but he just… he does so many bad things lol. Either just for fun or because he needs money or because he and his friends are being dumbasses. 

They both start off with “low-grade crappiness” in different ways. Throughout the show, Eleanor becomes a less selfish person, and actively tries to do good instead of just retreating into her selfishness, to the point where she can’t move on from the afterlife until she knows all her friends are taken care of. Jason curbs his impulses and learns to slow down and actually think before acting, to the point where he can wander the eternal woods for a thousand Bearimys until Janet comes back (just like a monk!).

And these parallels are reflected in their relationships with each other too! Chidi teaches Eleanor to do the right thing instinctively, rather than the selfish thing. Eleanor teaches Chidi not to think so much, to let his feelings and intuition guide him, and to actually act. Jason gets Tahani out of her own head, teaches her not to think about herself and her image as much. Tahani teaches Jason to think about the impact of his actions on the other people in his life before just impulsively acting. Eleanor and Tahani help each other become less self-centered, with Eleanor teaching Tahani useful life skills and Tahani helping Eleanor connect with other people. Jason helps Chidi become less inhibited and Chidi teaches Jason some restraint and patience. They’re all “perfectly suited to make each other miserable” but it turns out they’re also perfectly suited to help each other become the best versions of themselves.

Anyway, The Good Place is such a well-crafted, clever show, and I love rewatching it and noticing all these details! 

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You ever just wake up from an incredibly graphic and realistic nightmare that was a pure psychological horror based on your own personal phobias and trauma and just roll over like “aw shit I got too hot last night I guess.” And then make toast like you didn’t just experience the nine circles of hell before 9 am

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I FELL ASLEEP AND TOOK A NAP A COUPLE YEARS AGO AND SLEPT THROUGH JAN 6TH. I FELL ASLEEP A COUPLE DAYS AGO AND MISSED TRUMP GETTING SHOT. I JUST TOOK MY FIRST AFTERNOON NAP IN A BIT AND NOW THIS?

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Sometimes reading Arthuriana feels like reading Alice in Wonderland.

“Well,” said Alice, “these are a dreadfully strange assortment of objects!”

“They all symbolize different aspects of Our Lord’s martyrdom,” said the Fisher King, casting a line into his teacup.

“Indeed. I am sure everything symbolizes something else, for if everything was only itself I should be very confused. Might I ask what the point of the bleeding lance is?”

Alice regretted asking the question as soon as she had done so, for she saw the pun that would likely be made about the word point. Instead, however, the room erupted in applause and shouts of “The Grail! She has achieved the Grail!”

The next castle she visited, Alice resolved to herself as the inhabitants of this one danced for joy, would be more sensible.

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to every critic who claims that the Uglies cast is too attractive to be playing the "ugly" characters and it doesn't make sense for them to calling themselves ugly for having completely normal facial features:

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having to tap the "if an american place name sounds strange to you please google it and make sure you're not just mocking indigenous languages" sign again

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Recently there has been a fall in engagement with Palestinian content on tumblr, and for those of us who are helping Palestinians fundraise it is very obvious that this has happened directly after the very public smear campaigns, carried out by some racist users with significant followings.

It seems half the site somehow found it easier to believe in the horseshit about “belgian scam rings” and “russian botnets” in an effort to justify their apathy towards genocide victims, and the other half seems to think that everything is over and that the evil was defeated just because some racist bloggers got run off the site after giving half-hearted apologies that did nothing to mitigate the damage they had done.

THERE ARE PEOPLE STILL IN DIRE NEED OF HELP !! There are people who are still getting death threats from zionists every day and have to stay on this godforsaken website because their gofundmes haven't reached their endgoals yet...

I'm going to keep this brief:

Siraj's ( @siraj2024 ) family including his parents, and his five siblings and their families were displaced during the recent attacks by IOF on deir al balah

This means there are now 23 family members that Siraj is the sole provider for at the moment. 

10 of those members are young children.

Siraj's wife, Halima, is having a terrible flareup of eczema and his children are suffering from skin infections and badly need medical attention.

This whole family has been living in unhygienic conditions in 2 tents, packed like sardines during this heatwave, leading to spread of infections between them as well– all during a time where hygiene products have become unaffordable due to the israeli blockade, and when water has become scarce, and kids cant even receive life saving vaccinations during polio epidemic.

All this while everyday siraj risks his life trying to reach out to us from an internet point amidst violence and shelling from the IOF in what once was a “humanitarian safe zone”, even more desperately than before because–

THIS FUNDRAISER IS NOW THE ONLY LIFELINE FOR FIVE FAMILIES INSTEAD OF JUST ONE !!

Currently at $55,614/ $82,000 CAD

TIME IS RUNNING OUT!! We have to get to 60k by thursday i.e WITHIN THE NEXT THREE DAYS!! DONATE AND BOOST

Vetting link #219

If you want additional incentive to donate, pls check out:

Art raffle here (ending in 4 days!!!) - where you get to win this zine as a prize as well for as low as $5 for 1 entry, please dont miss it !!

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in honor of dashcon's 10 year anniversary i need to remind everyone that the dashcon schedule with panel names and descriptions is still up

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why are all the star trek games based on war and ship command and galactic fighting and war. i want diplomat simulator. i want skyrim for star trek. i wanna talk to a bunch of aliens about their farming rivalry and then go to the planet where everyones an italian mobster. i dont give a shit about upgrading the torpedoes on my battle cruiser to level up and destroy other ships in the New Online MMORPG. i want my entire ship to malfunction because an alien laid an egg in the nacelles and then i want to fix it by raising the alien as my own and then tossing it into space. what’s so hard to understand.

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Heartbreak high E6 S2

This hurts so much

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Is there something wrong with me if it actually made me laugh a little and didn’t creep me out?

So yesterday my grandparents found a big box of old 78s that they’ve had in an attic for years, and wanted me to transfer them to CDs. Most were in pretty great shape, no cracks and few scratches. Lots of 1930s sweet/hot jazz, British big band & swing and a few Decca classical ones. This one had its label peeled/scratched off on the a side, on the reverse was a Parlophone march.

90% sure by playing it it’s unleashed some kind of 70 year old curse.

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Good news for conservation

Youth leader Maya Tilousi shakes hands with Joe Biden on the day he signed a proclamation establishing the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, at the Historic Red Butte Airfied in Tusayan, Arizona.

About 41 million acres, an area slightly larger than Florida, has been placed under new protection across public and private lands during Biden’s term, meaning about 13% of the US landmass is now protected from corporate exploitation.

The White House has a goal to conserve 30% of US land and water by 2030.