a slandered shallow stream

one of the things i'm consistently worst at in anthropeum is identifying when a statue is a greek or roman statue and when it is a 16th century greek or roman-inspired statue

If someone sent you a letter in the mailbox that just said "hi" would that not drive you insane?

literally there are no clean identities though

and tbh i often see this tendency when talking about public sex or parental controls or any other criminalized activity related to sex to make simplistic summarized claims like "you don't get to have an opinion on sexual activity that doesn't directly physically involve you" or "you weren't traumatized by reading a book". and those claims are false; there are plenty of cases in which those things can constitute actual harm. i don't think you need to find an overarching rule that runs into a million real-world counterexamples in order to argue against the criminalization of something, and it's not a matter of nuance, it's a matter of actually looking at conditions and thinking through the implications of what we are saying - not to mention that it makes your argument weak

also re: harm/discomfort i don't agree politically at all with calling people with whom you disagree on whether or not they were harmed entitled, or soft, or sheltered. first of all objectively not true (similar to saying that most violent transmisogynists are rich and privileged), second of all irrelevant to the point being made (namely that the policies this harm is used to advocate for are bad), third of all presents your personal outlook on what constitutes harm (and i don't think its a bad thing to have one, and everyone, regardless of whether or not they are aware of it, makes this assessment any time someone describes being harmed in any words) as a matter of common sense and obfuscates what exactly makes you make that call, something that i think everyone should look into more. and fourth of all, shitty

you can't rest your opposition to specific policies that purport to prevent [harm] by saying that this harm never occurs and anyone saying it has is just too coddled and sensitive - more people should get comfortable with the fact that a lot of useful policies do include a degree of harm, and understand what harm (to whom, in what circumstances, and for what purposes) they think is justified. an artificial distinction between harm and discomfort or harm and a feeling of harm does nothing for this purpose

one thing that makes htagwm work in a way that house md doesn't for me is that though both shows revolve around the idea that people are always lying but geniuses can see through the lies and play 5d chess to get to the bottom of things, a pretty significant aspect of htagwm is that the exact truth doesn't matter - like logan says in succession, the past is all made up. what matters is to tell a convincing story. meanwhile in house md there is a correct answer, there is a singular unified disease that was already identified by science and that causes every symptom in a patient's body. not only is this more compelling to me from a personal point of view, it makes for better tv, imo

addicted to saying don't yuck my yum