Rage against the dying of the light

“Is it possible to turn things around by 2050? The answer is absolutely yes,” says Kai Chan, a professor at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia.

Many scientists have been telling us how the world will look like, if we don’t act now. However, others, like Chan, are tracking what success might look like.

They are not simply day-dreamers either. They aren’t being too optimistic. They are putting together road maps for how to safely get to the planet envisioned in the 2015 Paris Agreement, where temperatures hold at 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than before we started burning fossil fuels, this article from July states.

“Three decades is enough to do a lot of important things. In the next few years—if we get started on them—they will pay dividends in the coming decades,” says Chan, the lead author of the chapter on achieving a sustainable future in a recent UN report that predicted the possible extinction of a million species.

Making these changes won’t mean years of being poor, cold and hungry before things get comfortable again, the scientists insist. They say that if we start acting seriously NOW, we stand a decent chance of transforming society without huge disruption. 

No doubt, it will take a massive switch in society’s energy use. But without us noticing, that’s already happening. Not fast enough, maybe, but it is. Solar panels and offshore wind power plummet in price.  Iceland and Paraguay have stripped the carbon from their grids, according to a new energy outlook report from Bloomberg. Europe is on track to be 90 per cent carbon-free by 2040. And Ottawa says that Canada is already at 81 per cent, thanks to hydro, nuclear, wind and solar. 

Decarbonizing the whole economy is within grasp. We can do this.

Look at how many different apocalypses people can visualise. Our brains can freely feast on unlimited scenes of scarcity, competition and fear. Everywhere we turn we can consume endless content about killing our neighbors for scraps, about hurting children, about bleak planets and extinction, and lots and lots of guns. It is easy, accessible and cheap. Our minds gobble up as much of this content as the market generates and the market gleefully generates more. We feed and feed upon a future of suffering and loss. We feast on images of brown children being hurt, unnecessarily, and say smugly that “that’s just what humanity is like.” Our brains are programmed away from the natural human responses to crises (fix it, help each other, rebuild and hope) and TOWARDS the mindsets of fictional apocalypse (cause it, turn on each other [it’s just what humans do! We’ve all seen the same stories!], collapse, fight each other for crumbs, the world is doomed anyway.)

It’s pretty unnecessary. And frankly pretty cringe. Imagine being part of some of the most prosperous, empowered, educated, connected group of humans to ever exist, and having a brain that can only picture the future as apocalypse-movie.

And where is the food of abundance, equality, beauty, hope, diversity? Where is the actual food of the future? Oh. It’s in, like, three solarpunk anthologies, huh?

Huh.

Anyway not to get all Amitav Ghosh on main but we have GOT to address this unnecessary and EMBARRASSING failure of imagination. Because we are the generation currently failing in our responsibilities as caretakers of the earth, because of this deranged inability to picture the world as being a real place, and the future being a place where people will live.

Eating Chinese food, watching Bollywood movies, going to see Cambodian dancers, or learning to speak Korean so you can watch every K drama in existence is totally fine. The invitation to participate in those things came from within those cultures. The Mexican family that owns the place where I get fajitas wants me to eat fajitas. Their whole business model kind of depends on it, actually. 

If you see something from another culture you think you might want to participate in, but you don’t know if that would be disrespectful or appropriative, you can just…ask. Like. A Jewish friend explained what a mezuzah was to me, recently. (It’s the little scroll-thing near their front doors that they touch when they come into their house. It basically means “this is a Jewish household.”)

“Oh, cool,” I said. “Can I touch it? Or is it only for Jewish people?”

“You can touch it or you can not touch it,” she said. “I don’t care.”

“Cool, I’m gonna touch it, then.”

“Cool.”

It’s not hard.

Consent. Is the culture open to sharing this thing? (& don’t cheat by finding one person who consents while most of the culture disagrees.)

Context. If a culture is open to sharing a thing but it is a thing of great religious significance, take the time to learn what is a respectful way to treat the thing. Probably don’t use it as random decoration or sexualize it unless that’s what it’s for. 

high unemployment and a lot of underpaying, pointless jobs = people are looking for things to do with their life, a purpose

skyrocketing cost of living = most young people will not be able to live on their own, meaning some will end up in a group living situation with people interested in recruiting them

it’s a time of great cultural and political upheaval, nothing feels real, people are desperate for meaning and human connection. cults promise that

there is a new wave of acceptance and understanding for ways of life outside the norm, which is great! …except for when cult leaders tell you abusive and controlling practices are just their culture, their religion, their lifestyle, their beliefs, their tradition, and if you disrespect it you are the problem

social media influencers have already shown us how easy it is to build a cult of personality and attract people from anywhere in the world who are interested in the exact brand you are selling

spirtuality is having a boom, as are things like astrology, crystals, tarot, meditation, energy… those things aren’t bad on their own but they are often used as tools of cult spaces

wellness. i think a lot of people are already in wellness cults. you can make people do a lot of things in the name of “wellness” and a big factor of maintaining a cult is keeping members in a state of decreased cognition….. like say, with regular fasting

SOCIAL BUFFER: Learn what healthy social boundaries are and develop relationships which are within those boundaries.

Be wary of those who step on your or others’ boundaries. Be there for your friends, but don’t be their therapists or parents. Go get coffee or juice or snacks & chat casually with a friendly crew on a regular basis.

ESTEEM BUFFER. Recognize that you and every other person on this planet are owed a baseline of respect.

Respect means that what you wear, what/who you take interest in, and who/what you are are things which you decide on based on your own reasoning. If anyone is trying to change your mind, make sure to think critically about their side and decide for yourself whether you want to change. Ask: Why do they want you to change? Is that valid to your situation? Who / what would benefit from this change? Do you want them / it to benefit? Then decide for yourself.

RELAXATION BUFFER. Take time exclusively for yourself.

Take care of your body and mind when it needs to be fed, watered, washed, or nurtured. Have a couple hobbies that are just for you. Have more than one interest. Think about more than just one topic. Cults keep you focused on them to the exclusion of all else, so don’t allow yourself to be blocked in.

BUBBLE POP BUFFER: Learn from multiple sources, even ones you don’t like or respect.

Read multiple sources’ versions of events before you decide what you feel about something. Recognize that not all sources are valid, but understand what those invalid sources are trying to do. Are they misguided or malicious? Who are THEIR sources? What is the agenda? Who benefits? Why would they want to say what they’re saying? Do they have a point? Who pays them? What do they care about? Then make your decision.

BEWARE THE B.I.T.E.: Cults control people via Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotion control. BITE

Look up the BITE model and consider it against groups you wish to join / have joined.

Remember. You are the arbiter of your mind.

You have the blessing and burden of making your own decisions. Other people who will love and care about you throughout your life will want you to think for yourself and will think for themselves.

Casual reminder: the Jonestown folks were, among other things, civil rights activists and evangelists for progressive politics of the time. Politics that, outside the context of their cult, were completely agreeable and even good.

There are different ways cults convince you to cut ties with those outside the group, to rely on them as your primary or only source of community. Some will fall back on old school bigotries and social mores (strict gender roles, racism, ableism, etc). Others? Will tap into actual movements for positive ideologies and use the existing isolation that can exist with those valid but often belied beliefs to encourage even further isolation, for “self protection”, to “remove toxic people”, because others are “the enemy”.

All of which can be healthy things to do in theory, but be cautious of who’s suggesting you do them and why.

As folks have said above, it’s not just self proclaimed “religions” and “movements”. It’s also self-help, wellness, MLM companies, exercise groups, book clubs, basically any group that regularly gets together, and in the modern era? That includes: discords, subreddits, group chats, forums, etc.

I think one of the biggest mistakes people make about cults is reading all these kinds of warnings and garnering from it that there is intention and planning and malice in these manipulations. But here’s the most important thing to know: usually, the people “recruiting” you or “indoctrinating” you? They also mean well. They are genuinely other likeminded people who are trying their best. They’re true believers and they genuinely believe they are offering you solace and community that is good for you. You’ll say “but these people can’t be a cult, they’re so nice!” Yes they are! “They’re not evil!” Yeah! That’s what makes a cult a cult. The defining feature of a cult, above all else, is its ability to get otherwise good rational people to act in ways deeply outside their interest, ways they would normally never act.

“And they’re smart people!” Yes! There’s no “being too smart” to fall for a cult. In fact, many cults cater to those with above average intelligence. Often being “smart” can make it harder to leave, because you’re better at finding justifications for what should be unjustifiable. Finding rationale for what is irrational.

There are a few common avenues of daily reinforcement and control. Sex is the most notorious (there’s a reason people have been studying Incels under the model of a cult despite them lacking the technical qualifier of an unquestionable leader - a qualification that some are wondering if the internet hasn’t rendered moot given the propensity of communities to self-radicalize en masse with this new medium). There’s also Food, Sleep, Language, Clothes, Work, Entertainment.

Especially when the group manages to take the focus away from its stated ideologies to those mostly symbolic abstractions? And treating them as equivalent? That’s a method of thought control, and a means of getting you to voluntarily self-isolate. It starts reasonable and then morphs into controlling.

My religion thinks bodies are sacred and should be respected - becomes My religion thinks bodies should be kept private except to your immediate family - becomes My religion mandates we can’t wear clothes that expose our shoulders - becomes My religion is warning against hanging out with people who wear tank tops because they could be a bad influence.

The initial ideal the action represents is almost always good. It’s the abstraction and reformation of it into something small and mostly unrelated to the first goal, something that makes you afraid to step outside the group, that is the problem, and more than that, it’s then the enforcement of that now largely arbitrary and abstract rule.

Something reasonable like “We need to care for the environment and the wellbeing of animals” becomes “I could lose my entire community and would be considered irreparably evil if I ate an egg”.

Being vegan because you want to be? Because there’s good reasons to be? Because you like it? Chill. Being vegan because your entire social structure is based on it and you’re afraid of the moral and social consequences of doing differently? Because you worry it would make you morally bankrupt and beyond deserving love? Not chill.

Or not entirely beyond deserving love, the group tells you. There is a reparation you can make, but only the group holds that salvation, so you have to prostrate yourself before them on their terms to be accepted in the only community you have left.

This can become a cycle of guilt and repentance that keeps you trapped. You’re not supposed to masturbate, but you do. You feel guilty, so you confess. The group gives you a mandated penance that’s nearly impossible to meet. The guilt and anxiety overwhelm you. All you want is to feel good for just a second. You masturbate again. The cycle repeats. The group says you have an “addiction”, when a healthy attitude outside the group would call your initial act totally healthy and normal, and the diagnosis of it as a problem and the unnecessary shame as the actual problem. The group provides a solution to a problem they themselves invented.

Even if it’s not a full blown cult, if you’re afraid of the social retribution you might face for doing things like enjoying a movie or using the wrong label for yourself or choosing the wrong product brand - question that community and whether it’s actually good for you. (And if the RIGHT product brand happens to be owned by a major figure within the community? That’s a cult baby! Someone’s grifting you, get the hell out!)

Look out for love-bombing. For thought terminating cliches. For strict in-group/out-group boundaries. For so many alternate definitions to words that your conversations becomes nearly indecipherable to anyone outside the small community. For unreasonable demands of ideological purity. For things that can physically impair your judgment- like a strictly controlled diet, fasting, massive physical exertion, weird sleep schedules, mind altering substances. For outright dismissal of standard sources without examination (“oh you trust the mainstream media still?” “They just want to silence us.”) For ostracism or vilification of defectors or people who disagree, especially when it’s about relatively minor sticking points.

Cults and conspiracy theories can steal your relationships, your sense of self, your time, your money, and they can make you willingly do things that are actively hurtful to yourself and others in the name of the group or the conspiracy.

So what?

And I was like EMPHATICALLY YES, DUDE.

So here’s a chart showing the average cumulative student loan debt for a newly graduated med student:

You might, possibly, be noticing a trend, but I DO want to just highlight that the average debt was bonkers high in 2000, and LITERALLY DOUBLED over the next 16 years.

And do note, that’s debt at graduation. I’m emphasizing that because we’re talking about doctors, and doctors don’t just jump into becoming the chief of sexy surgery at St. Bezos Hospital for Billionaires - the next step is 3-8 years of residency.

I’m just gonna drop some 2019 figures here so we can talk about that residency period:

That’s... a lot of hours at work, right? Please bear in mind that these figures are still lowballing the total amount of time spent at work; residents don’t just do scut work and have face time with patients - tack on charting, reporting, mandatory training, meetings, etc. etc. etc. and you’re closer to the real picture. It’s a gargantuan amount of work.

But at least they’re well compensated, right?

Okay I know that $61,200 might not seem insanely low, and I know that plenty of people get by on a lot less. I mean, if we’re talking an 80 hour work week, that averages out to an hourly rate of 14.71, so only a little less than the current democrat proposal for a national minimum wage.

I mean, I will make the case that we’re talking pre-tax here; assuming that our resident takes a standard deduction, federal tax alone is going to take away 6,407.50. Depending on their state, you can knock another 2-3k off, but let’s pretend that they live in Florida or whatever; we’re down to 54700-ish.

So what’s the average cost of living in the US? These are national figures:

Okay so... rent, electricity, and food alone is gonna run our resident, on average, 28,559. I’ll skip the cost of furnishing that apartment, or the fact that people eventually do need to buy things like uh, clothes, transportation, internet, cell service, medicine, personal hygiene items, household goods beyond just food, etc. We’ll pretend our resident has nobody to support, no leisure activities that they’d (god forbid) like to do to unwind after an 80 hour work week, no weddings to attend, funerals to arrange, pets to feed, unanticipated medical expenses that might pop up... our average, perfectly healthy, high key minimalist resident has 26,141 dollars to work with annually; $2178 a month.

Now remember that average $240,000 of student loan debt our average resident has? With an average interest rate of 6.6 percent on those loans, a resident on a default 10 year repayment plan would have to make monthly loan payments of $2794 a month.

It’s not possible for our average medical resident with extremely low personal expenses to pay off their loans at the default rate. So, they can either elect to use a longer repayment plan (meaning that more interest will accrue), or enter into forbearance (meaning that more interest will acrue). How much interest are we talking?

COOL TIP, PERSONAL FINANCE SITE!

But whatever, you know? Our resident is going to make bank eventually, after all. Who gives a shit?

Well. Probably our average resident, who is about 28 years old entering their residency, so somewhere between 31 and 39 by the time they’re a grown up doctor who gets paid grown up doctor dollars. Imagine, if you will, that our minimalist average resident has hopes for the future; a house, a car, kids, savings for retirement, maybe even a vacation or two. And that resident, as part of their residency, is going to choose a speciality.

Which specialty does our resident with 245k of student loans that is accruing interest every single day of their residency choose?

I’m not just speculating here. Like, obviously, this is something Dr. Average is probably going to consider:

So why should we be talking about canceling Dr. Average’s staggering amount of student loan debt?

Well, if you’re empathetic, maybe you just don’t want the next generation of physicians to be under a ridiculous financial burden. If you’re economically (ahem) conservative, maybe you’re considering all the money that Dr. Average won’t be pumping into the economy so they can someday climb out of this hole. Or if you’re someone who needs to visit a PCP???

Maybe you’ve got some stake in this too.

For what it’s worth, I’m not a doctor, but I am a person with a prestigious graduate degree that took six figures of student loan debt to acquire, and that degree was an absolute prerequisite for me to work in my stereotypically lucrative field. I didn’t spend foolishly as a student, I went to the school that offered me a decent scholarship instead of the really prestigious schools that accepted my application, and even though I graduated college directly into a crippling recession, I nonetheless saved as much of my post-collegiate income as a person making $12 per hour as I possibly could to finance my education. I worked throughout my program, I did well in school, and after I graduated, I managed to land what most of my classmates would consider to be a dream job. I am 32 years old, making above-average money for my region and title, and (as an aspiring homeowner who would love to someday be free of that debt) I live in my parents’ basement. I did literally everything that was supposed to lead to financial security, I’m on track to accomplishing that goal, and the only reason that’s possible is because I am living rent free in my parents’ basement.

My parents, incidentally, used to work in the same industry as me. Hell, I went to the same exact school as my dad, and I ended up doing the exact same thing my dad did! The only difference was that I, unlike my dad, got an academic scholarship that covered 2/3 of my tuition! When he was thirty two, he was buying his second house, and he had a kid and no student loan debt. I am thirty two and I, again, live in his basement.

I could be out of this situation faster, I’m sure. I could be more frugal, stop spending money on unnecessary things that I love, like my aquariums or art supplies... but I also don’t think I’m being insanely radical here by pointing out that prior generations of people in my industry were not expected to spend a decade of severe and joyless austerity in order to be financially stable enough to start their “real life.”

Go watch Soul because it actually has black people on screen for most of the movie.

Go watch Soul because we’re not caricatures or flat, one-note black stereotypes.

Go watch Soul because it actually has an important message on one’s passion and purpose in life that I refuse to spoil here.

Go watch Soul because the trailers DON’T actually give away the plot and the movie’s genuinely better the trailers.

Go watch Soul because you bet your ass corporate’s gonna blame low numbers on the film having vast majority black characters and try to stop this kinda movie from ever happening again.

Go watch Soul because judging the entirety of a movie before it even airs based on the freakin’ trailer (which is hardly ever actually put together by the creators of the film itself and is more tied to the marketing department) instead of the actual film itself is an incredibly ignorant thing to do.

Go watch Soul and form your own opinion instead of jumping on a woke bandwagon.

Signed,

Link to original tweet thread.

EDIT: I originally posted this on June 1, 2020, and it was tweeted either that day or possibly the day before. The OP has since locked down her Twitter, presumably due to harassment.

instead of “defund the police,” say “invest in community safety” and emphasize things like participatory budgeting giving you power over where YOUR taxes go and reallocating funds to after-school programs, social services, and food pantries

instead of “abolish ice,” say “immigration reform” and “create a new agency for immigration and citizenship services” 

instead of “medicare for all,” say “universal health care” or even just really harp on making healthcare affordable and accessible to everyone

instead of “the green new deal” (which was a great piece of messaging in the first place before it became inextricably tied up with aoc’s theatrics), talk about what an effective piece of climate legislation will create, not what it will destroy. when you say “ban fracking” or “ban fossil fuels” or “reduce methane emissions in agriculture” people go “YOU WON’T TAKE MY JOB OR MY FARTING COWS.” climate is really an area where being able to reframe it through the language of capitalism helps. say “let’s give tax breaks to farmers, especially small family farms who are already being squeezed out by the big guys, so they can invest in the future of their business” and other noise-shaped air stuff like that. instead of “ban fracking” talk about the jobs that renewable energy will create in communities that have been left behind by our reliance on foreign oil. i mean, fuck, the phrase “climate change” can be a real problem when you’re talking to the whole country because of how effective the “climate and weather are the same things” and “climate change is a hoax” disinfo campaigns have been over the past 20 years or so - but when you talk about “conserving our natural resources” and all that teddy roosevelt, ranger rick shit, it just comes across different. 

instead of “abortion rights”…. listen, you know i hate equivocating about abortion but at the end of the day, when you’re talking to people who are probably anti-abortion for religious reasons but will still vote democrat because they’re not a single-issue anti-abortion voter, don’t say “abortion (on demand without apology etc),” say “the constitutional right to privacy” or “the right to make personal medical decisions without the government intervening.” fearmonger about attacks on abortion the way sarah palin fearmongered about how obamacare would lead to “death panels” deciding whether your grandma would live or die! and if you’re talking to someone who just doesn’t feel that strongly about abortion because yada yada roe is settled who cares, talk about how “empowering women to decide when they start a family fuels economic growth and leads to more wanted children growing up in stable, happy two-parent homes” and so on. 

inversely, instead of “abolish the death penalty,” talk about “saving the lives of the innocent” and “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” if you’re talking to a christian and honestly just look at the libertarian arguments against the death penalty and ape some of those - cost to the taxpayer, high wrongful conviction rates as a reflection of government incompetence. honestly, the libertarian right is frequently aligned with the left on criminal justice issues and i know we all love to dunk on libertarians but the language they use is pretty appealing to moderates who might be coming from a more conservative background or region where it’s just normal

instead of “democratic socialism,” just talk about, like, values - ending poverty and hunger, living wages and better educational opportunities, creating jobs and protecting ordinary working people and families and putting money back in their pockets and creating a stable economy. people really do vote based on kitchen table issues and you can really make a moral appeal on the rest.

instead of “tax the rich,” say “cut taxes.” period. never talk about raising taxes. not on the rich, not on the middle class, not for any reason whatsoever, even if you’re saying “if we raise taxes on billionaires we can give everyone a pony.” i don’t care how much you want to tax billionaires, don’t fucking bring it up. i hate bezos as much as everyone but we live in america, where everyone is simply a temporarily embarrassed billionaire and convinced that taxing the ultra-rich will somehow hurt them too. don’t expect middle-of-the-road normies to get on board with the “i’ll pay more taxes if it means other people have health care” thing you see from avowed liberals and lefties, because they will not, i’m sorry. frankly *****i***** have no interest in paying more taxes because nyc already taxes you out the nose regardless of where you are on the socioeconomic scale and if someone suggested i should pay more, even if it meant paying less on private services in the long run, i would simply be like, “nope!” so like, yeah, obviously the goal is to eliminate corporate tax loopholes and tax the ultra-rich at a higher rate while cutting tax burdens on everyone else, but what you want to say is stuff like “small business owners shouldn’t pay more in taxes than the companies like apple and amazon that are already squeezing them out” and “we’ll cut taxes and frivolous government spending,” period, no embellishment. “making american companies pay american taxes” is a succinct catchphrase i like to use. 

instead of “defund/spend less on the military,” say “why is the government spending so much on building outdated outdated tanks and submarines from 50 years ago and so little on services for veterans? we need to revitalize our military spending so that we can spend less on safer, more modern equipment, preserve those manufacturing jobs, and make sure that veterans get the health care and job opportunities they deserve.” get it? like, republicans have been selling the “cut waste, cut taxes, cut spending” line for decades because it sounds good and people really respond to it. unfortunately, one of the many cursed legacies of ronald reagan is that most people still think that balancing a government budget is like balancing a checkbook, and obviously that’s not true but it lends a lot of familiar comparisons and metaphors, so like… use them.

don’t equivocate on “black lives matter” - it’s too important and too urgent - instead, give the non-activist liberals you already know the accessible language they can use to help normalize the phrase “black lives matter” in their own lives and encourage them to do so. they won’t convert the full-on blue lives matter cult members and other assorted balls-to-the-wall racists, but there are people in the middle who just need to hear a targeted explanation of why that isn’t a combative or controversial statement, and that totally depends on the individual… there’s the very basic 101-logicky “if saying ‘save the whales’ doesn’t mean you think dolphins can kick rocks, or if saying ‘spinach is a vegetable’ doesn’t mean that you think lettuce isn’t, why does ‘black lives matter’ imply that other lives don’t?” and i saw someone in the christians against trump group cite a brene brown quote they said (“In order for slavery to work, in order for us to buy, sell, beat, and trade people like animals, Americans had to completely dehumanize slaves. And whether we directly participated in that or were simply a member of a culture that at one time normalized that behavior, it shaped us. We can’t undo that level of dehumanizing in one or two generations. I believe Black Lives Matter is a movement to rehumanize black citizens. All lives matter, but not all lives need to be pulled back into moral inclusion. Not all people were subjected to the psychological process of demonizing and being made less than human so we could justify the inhumane practice of slavery.”) that made it click for them and they like to use to make it click for others, and there’s also this example that i think is probably pretty resonant for christians:

the point is, as with all the rest of this, that there are a lot of people out there who are alienated by the language (because there has been a billion-dollar media propaganda machine working overtime to make the language as alienating as possible) but not by the content of the argument. the right is SO good at messaging to its base by speaking their language, dog whistles and all. but because the democratic party is a coalition of moderates and liberals and leftists, you really have to be strategic about your messaging in a way that the right doesn’t. frankly, that’s why joe biden won - he made those same broad appeals to morality and civility and unity and prosperity that people want to hear. 

How much they hate their energy bill

Opening up the electricity market to competition, so the invisible hand of the free market can keep prices down

Creation of local jobs in a local co-op

The actual safety of solar power

Cost savings

Because i know, i know, Nader and Stein and blah blah blah, but exit polls suggest that in a two-party-only election it still would have been a toss up between Trump and Clinton - sure Clinton might have had all of Jill Stein's votes but Trump would have had all of Gary Johnson and Tim McMullin's votes. Pennsylvania goes to Clinton, Florida goes to Trump, and flip a coin in Michigan.

Because I'm seeing a lot of people saying "now that RBG died you HAVE to vote, it's more important than EVER" but.

Like. What's your plan for high voter turnout and low numbers of third party votes and low numbers of write-ins and a vote in Wyoming still counts six times as much as a vote in California and most states are winner take all and districts are gerrymandered all to hell - what's your plan for when you canvass and you're working the polls and you're driving the people from the old folks home to do early voting and Biden wins the popular vote and still loses the election?

Because I'm seeing a lot of well-meaning liberals act like it's the *tiny* percentage of the population who are anarchists who are going to be held responsible and blamed for the next fifty years of darkness and the death of democracy.

You know what anarchists didn't do in 2016? Protest vote for Jill Stein in a presumed-safe election.

You know what anarchists didn't do in 2000? Vote for Ralph Nader.

Start acting like you expect Trump to win. Start acting like abortions in your state are going to become illegal. Start acting like your pre-existing condition is going to cost you your health insurance.

Start making plans for finding alternate ways to get people their hormones and insulin. Start learning how to admimister an abortion with medication. Start taking first aid classes, start learning how to mix and pour concrete so they can't shut off your water, start learning how to steal power, start learning how to set up mesh networks and secure communications.

Hey, even worse, what if it does work but wages stay stagnant, healthcare gets more expensive, fracking continues and Amazon never has to pay taxes while abusing its employees, and an anti abortion centrist or a pro private prison liberal gets appointed to the supreme court? If Clinton was willing to run with an anti-choice VP in 2016 and the dems were willing to let her I don't have a lot of confidence in the SCOTUS nominees they'll manage to get installed on the court.

It's fine if you believe that voting works, go vote, I'm not going to stop you and I'm going to vote myself.

But what are you going to do if it doesn't work?

THAT is what my list of anarchist resources is for and THAT is why "go vote" is not on that list.

fresh, clean no-terf version for reblogs!

Sex is literally made up. Sex characteristics? Real. Genitalia is real, hormone levels are real, chromosomes are real... But dividing those into two boxes isn't real. We arbitrarily threw together the two most common combinations of these traits, called them male and female, and said fuck everyone who doesn't fit into that.

Sex isn't some holy thing that only the most radical people want to destroy, it's a farce used to justify the medical abuse of intersex people. If you want to be an ally to intersex people, please take the time to think about these things. Think about the way we talk about sex and how it might be hurting intersex people.

Using "assigned gender" language, legitimating the idea of a sex binary, calling intersex types "conditions"/"disorders"/etc., comparing intersex people to animals with diverse sex characteristics, and not listening to or acknowledging intersex people are all things people need to stop doing if they want to be allies to intersex people.

hi tumblr-the conservative party is back at it again. 

currently, the GRA (gender recognition act) says to transition “legally”, trans people have to: 

 get two diagnoses of gender dysphoria (including one from an NHS gender clinic, which have a 2-3 year wait time currently), 

prove you have lived as your chosen gender for 2 years, 

swear to live the remainder of your life as such

and  do all of this in front of a “gender recognition panel”, a process which is very humiliating and largely depends on people deciding if you are “trans enough”. 

in 2018, the idea was put on the table to progress the rights of transgender people in the UK. Including: 

 allowing them to self identify as their chosen gender (including 16 & 17 year olds, who have previously been denied the right to)

demedicalising the transition progress, no doctors would need to diagnose gender dysphoria to transition.

removing the cost to have your gender legally recognised

allow non-binary identities to be recognised

it has recently been leaked that the current government has scrapped these ideas [source  source]. Our equality minister, Liz Truss, is horribly transphobic and wishes to backpedal on the few rights we have. 

trans people have said for years that the GRA is outdated and in need of reform, and have had the tiny ray of hope that it may be changed ripped out from under us behind closed doors. 

petitions on the parliament website are legally obligated to be responded to at 10k signatures and have to be debated in parliament at 100k signatures. 

only british citizens can sign this, but if you are not from the uk, please boost it so your british followers can see! 

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/327108

Exxon knew.

They knew, 50 years ago, that they were going to murder the planet and our species with their oil.

And they acted.

Oh, how they acted!

They created a campaign of lies to distort the public perception of climate change.

https://exxonknew.org/

Exxon knew.

They knew in ‘73, when their researchers told them: plastics would never be recycled. There would not be a cost effective way to recycle plastic.

And they acted.

They created a disinformation campaign to convince us plastic COULD be recycled.

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled

That campaign - the little recycling logos on our plastics, the upbeat videos about a future where plastic was part of a circular economy of use and recycling - convinced us to buy, wash, and sort plastic.

90% of that plastic was never recycled. It never will be.

NONE of those splashy campaigns - the announcement that all NYC school plastics would be recycled, the recycling in national parks - ever worked. They all lasted long enough to get some upbeat press, and then they quietly shut down.

This week’s NPR/Planet Money investigation by Laura Sullivan doesn’t just talk to the ex-chief lobbyists, now serving as belated Oppenheimers, lamenting the impending destruction of our planet.

It also talks to the current round of executives who have announced a fresh round of plans to recycle plastics - completely disingenuous, insultingly obvious distraction tactics to convince us that their projections of TRIPLING production by 2050 isn’t a form of mass murder.

Then Sullivan circles back to those retired executives, the ones who oversaw the first disinformation campaign, and they confirm that this latest round of promises are literally the same tactic, barely updated for a world on fire.

The world is on fire. My sky has been orange all week. Our family’s socially distanced meetings with friends in parks or back yards have been cancelled because we cannot breathe outside.

Exxon - and Chevron, and the rest of Big Oil - knows.

In a secret recording released to the New York Times, oil execs meet to cheerfully discuss how they will burn the world and murder us all but make a buck in the process.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/12/climate/methane-natural-gas-flaring.html

Their plans for climate change don’t involve reducing emissions - they’re building bunkers and hiring mercenaries to keep us at bay when we come for them. They know what they’ve done.

Exxon knows.

Exxon knows.

When I searched for the “Exxon Knew” campaign to find a link for this piece, the top of Google’s search results included a blisteringly expensive ad for a disinformation site, paid for by Exxon.

The sky is orange. The oceans are choking. The air is unbreathable. Your body is full of microplastics.

Exxon.

Fucking.

In the past two days I've read dozens of stories of students who aced their mocks and coursework, who had predicted grades of As and A*s, only to be given Ds and Es because of where the school is. I've read dozens of stories of deserving pupils losing their places at prestigious universities because their grades are too low.

Rest assured this algorithm had no ill effect on private schools, which were in some cases awarding their students significantly higher results than their prior grades indicated.

THEY'VE ALL LOST THEIR JOBS YOU INCOMPREHENSIBLE FUCKWIT!

I won’t go too deep on how and why it happens, or all the diffferent subtypes of the disease, but what it entails is that for the severe presentation, because the baby is lacking one gene, they’ll gradually lose the strenght in their muscles. By the age of 4, most those children are dead. 

It’s not an easy death. The child loses the capacity to breathe and swallow by themselves because of muscle weakness. We provide support as best as we can, but there’s not a lot we can do about something like that. And though muscle strenght is lost, cognition is unaffected, which means the baby brain is maturing as it would regularly, inside a weakening body. 

So, it’s horrific. But because it’s a single gene causing the mess, and because science has advanced this far, scientists went “hey what if we could give the kid this gene?” 

And that’s exactly what they did. Enter Novartis, pharma giant. They decided to try it out: put the gene inside an empty virus, give the virus to the kid. Did it work?

to those of you who don’t speak medical: yes. yes it did. it worked really well. it worked well to a point where they ran tests with 15 kids and all 15 kids survived without need for respiratory aid, as opposed to the usual 92% death/permanent ventilation rate. 

“Wow, this is good,” said Novartis. “I’m going to put a 2.1 million dollars tag on it.”

“What the fuck?” said the parents, who are regular people who do not have 2.1m sitting on their banks.

“Well, you know,” said Novartis. “You only have to take it once in a lifetime! Seems like a fair price to me. Uh, but also, do bear in mind it only works if you give it to the baby before they turn 2 years old.” 

but does it end there? no! although the drug was FDA approved, Novartis needs their prized treatment to get cleared on the rest of the world. people are complaining about the price tag, too. so they have an idea. a brilliant idea! 

“We’ll get the contacts of the kids who have it around the world,” said Novartis. “And then we’ll run a lottery! Because we are generous, we’ll give away a hundred doses a year for the entire population of planet Earth! Of course, that means your country has to agree my drug is legit.” 

“What if I don’t get picked,” wonder the parents of the children.

“Well, you know. You can always just raise 2.1 million dollars, but remember you have to do it before your kid turns two.”

so now i sit here seething in hatred toward big pharma, watching mothers desperately trying to raise an absurd amount of money which is even more absurd if your coin is weaker than the dollar, saddled with the weight that if they don’t do it in time, they’ll have to watch their kids die

and then every once in a while one of them manages to raise the cash, and then they’ll post videos in their social media and i get to watch as the babies gradually regain strenght and starts sitting on their own, then moving their limbs, then standing up by themselves

while the other mothers share increasingly desperate videos of their kids who can no longer sit, and no longer swallow, and no longer breathe, until it all ends with a single text shared through instagram that just says “thank you all, but my child has passed, and we’ll give what we managed to raise to the next one.”