(possibly) five kobolds in a coat

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.

Google set out about a decade ago to push their (relatively unpopular) chromebooks by supplying them below-cost to schools for students, explicitly marketing them as being easy to restrict to certain activities, and in the offing, kids have now grown up in walled gardens, on glorified tablets that are designed to monetize and restrict every movement to maximize profit for one of the biggest companies in the world.

happy pride! remember that being transgender is everything but fiction. there are so many real historical figures from every century about whose transgender identities we aren't even aware of

Here's some data from the 2022 United States Trans Survey Health & Wellbeing Report relevant to trans men & nonbinary people assigned female. This is the study's way of dividing the data, not mine. I included race & disability where they also provided that data. This is just the data relevant to transmascs that I found in a cursory look-through, I recommend people go to the actual report to see the data for themselves.

Trans men (32%) and nonbinary individuals assigned female at birth (AFAB) (24%) were the most likely to avoid care due to mistreatment concerns. American Indian/Alaska Native respondents (32%) and Middle Eastern/North African respondents (37%) reported the highest shares of avoiding care.

Nonbinary AFAB people and trans men reported the greatest proportions of negative experiences with healthcare providers (55% and 53%, respectively). Respondents with disabilities also had higher rates of negative experiences, compared to those without a disability (58% vs. 41%, respectively).

Among gender categories, trans men and AFAB nonbinary individuals showed the poorest self-reported health (64% and 58%, respectively).

Trans men and AFAB nonbinary people show the highest burden with 31% and 34%, respectively, reporting that they did not see a healthcare provider because of cost. Cost was disproportionately a prohibitive factor for Multiracial (34%), American Indians/Alaska Native (33%), and Latine respondents (32%).

In 2022, AFAB nonbinary respondents and trans men faced the highest shares of hormone therapy denials at 14% and 13%, respectively. Trans women (21%) and trans men (19%) reported the highest shares of transition-related surgery denials.

While transgender men and AFAB nonbinary individuals often seek similar forms of care, nonbinary individuals experience a larger gap between desiring a procedure and receiving it, possibly due to systemic barriers or variations in how medical providers approach nonbinary transition-related care.

Methodology:

Gold Inlaid Bracelet of King Psusennes I

Third Intermediate Period, 21st Dynasty, reign of Psusennes I, c. 1047-1001 BC. Now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. JE 85160

I'm glad I helped you learn a bit more about it!

I highly suggest anyone who wants to understand Scientology better watch the documentary "Going Clear." Its on HBO but I'm sure it can be found pirated in other places. Its based on a book by the same name and goes into the history of Scientology, its beliefs, and exactly how it abuses its members.

Again I sincerely recommend people watch this film if they have the time/are in the right headspace. It includes accounts of emotional and physical abuse (both domestic abuse and high control group abuse), severe neglect of an infant, forced labor under horrific conditions, and the kind of manipulative behavior you would expect from a cult.

There's nothing wrong with wearing polos. Or keeping your house clean. Or shaving, or 'politeness', or whatever. But.

... A very important test of someone's character is how they deal with things that Society (TM) in general, and their social circle in particular, thinks are Not Okay. If society says it's Not Okay to be gay, are you capable of being decent to gay people? If society says you Have to like drinking, and you can't stand the taste or effects of alcohol, are you gonna let people pressure you into drinking anyway, to get along with others? If your social circle says that it's Not Okay to listen to certain music, are you going to listen to that music anyway? If your social circle says that people with Political View A are all evil bastards, are you able to be decent to someone with Political View A? (Or someone with Political View C or Religion Q that vaguely looks like Political View A, if you squint?) Things like that.

If you see someone who has stripped their life of anything that society disapproves of, that's not a great sign. If you see someone who has stripped their life of anything their social circle disapproves of, even if they're alt and anti-government, that's also a bad sign.

You need to have something in your life that is yours, that is not dictated by someone outside you, that no one is going to take away from you. You need to have some part of your life that you will defend and hold onto, even if everyone else is telling you that it's wrong. Even if everyone you know thinks you're dangerously bad and stupid for it.