proposing a new genre of fiction called an anti-romance where u r presented w a couple at the start & the story is about their emotional journey towards a catastrophic break up
will they won't they (end this farce). there's only one bed (but for some reason they don't really want to share it). out of context eavesdropping (that paints the relationship in a better light than it deserves). chasing after them to stop them getting on that plane (and stopping them from finally being free)
nobody understands my vision i don't mean any old story where a relationship fails and it's tragic or w/e i mean a story where the intention is for the audience to root for it failing the same way u root for it succeeding in a romance. & when the relationship finally implodes at the climax of the story it's all very cathartic & everybody cheers.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Qualityâ Free Actions
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
Zuckerbergâs increasingly bizarre war on whistleblowers
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:
More than a decade ago, a group of young, internet-connected Belarusian dissidents launched a series of increasingly high-stakes, increasingly surreal confrontations with the corrupt, authoritarian government of Alexander Lukashenka, a man who is often called "the last Soviet dictator."
Lukashenka's secret police â still called the KGB â routinely terrorize and kidnap pro-democracy activists, and all forms of protest are banned. It was against the backdrop of this unrelenting oppression that the activists launched a series of whimsical "flash mobs" that challenged the Lukashenka regime's willingness to crack down on even the most innocuous behavior.
One of these flash mobs was an ice cream social: activists converged on a public square to eat ice cream cones. Lukashenka's thugs beat them and dragged them away:
The protestors thought that by daring Lukashenka to arrest people for eating ice cream, they could create a win-win situation: either Lukashenka would be revealed as the kind of asshole who thinks it should be illegal to eat ice cream, or he'd be revealed as the kind of weakling who couldn't keep a lid on dissent.
Lukashenka took the bait. And took it. And took it. In the years that followed, protesters would be arrested for smiling, clapping, and just standing silently:
The world learned that Lukashenka was a buffoon, and Belarusians affirmed their view that this buffoon would not hesitate to mete out the most vicious punishments for the most innocuous actions:
https://sci-hub.st/10.1080/25739638.2021.1928880
Speaking of thin-skinned, paranoid, wildly corrupt buffoons who will stop at nothing to silence their enemies, how about that Mark Zuckerberg, huh? Sure, all the headlines these days are about Zuck's intention to transform Facebook into a sports betting site:
But in the UK, Zuckerberg's war on whistleblowers keeps finding new, ice cream grade depths of absurdity to plumb. The whistleblower in question is, of course, Sarah Wynn-Williams, author of the internationally bestselling memoir Careless People, which details the criminality she witnesses during her years as the head of Facebook's international relations team:
Careless People is full of revelations about the gross institutional misconduct of Facebook, including its knowing encouragement of a genocide in Myanmar. But it's also full of stories about the severe personal failings of Facebook's executive team, especially Sheryl Sandberg, Joel Kaplan and Mark Zuckerberg.
These three come off as the most colossal of assholes, cruel, petty and predatory. Sandberg comes across as a sexual abuser who dreams of trafficking in poor people's organs. Kaplan is an oaf whose plan to provide paid internet access to refugee camps falls apart once he learns that refugees in camps don't have any money (he also takes points off of Wynn-Williams' workplace evaluation for being "unresponsive" over a period when she was in a near-death coma). Worst of all, though, is Zuckerberg, whose sins range from cheating at Settlers of Catan to endangering the Colombian peace process after a 50-year civil war because he refused to get out of bed before noon. Zuck is also revealed to have given the Chinese state access to all of Facebook and the power to censor content they disliked, as part of a failed bid to get permission to offer a Facebook service in China.
It's a terrible company, with awful products, run by the worst people. Wynn-Williams' conditions of employment required her to sign a contract that bound her to silence (nondisclosure), forbade her from speaking ill of the company (nondisparagement), and denied her access to the legal system in all her dealings with Meta (binding arbitration).
Together, these three clauses â routinely used by Meta to silence would-be whistleblowers â meant that after Wynn-Williams's book was published, Meta got its arbitrator â a lawyer who is paid by Meta to adjudicate contractual disputes instead of an actual judge â to order her to never promote or even speak about her book.
The arbitrator awarded Meta $50,000 for each criticism that Wynn-Williams levied, quickly coming to a total of over $11,000,000. This vastly exceeds the assets and lifetime earning potential of Wynn-Williams and her husband (a reporter with the Financial Times). If this bill ever truly comes due, they will be wiped out.
Which raises an interesting question: what else can they do to her? Once they've secured civil damages that exceeds her net worth several times over, why shouldn't she just flout her agreement? "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose," and all that.
Nevertheless, Wynn-Williams has scrupulously hewed to the arbitrator's rules, steadfastly remaining silent about her book, its contents, and her experiences at Facebook/Meta. When she and I appeared onstage together in London for the launch for my book Enshittification last year, she fell silent and assumed a blank expression any time the subject of Meta came up, and she didn't sign or sell books afterward:
When she won the British Book Award, she did not speak to accept it, and the cover of her book was blurred out on the overhead screen (she gave an acceptance speech on behalf of her co-winner, the late Virginia Giuffre, who was abused by Jeffrey Epstein and who accused Prince Andrew of sexual assault):
Nevertheless, when she was booked to speak â about a subject other than her book â at the Hay Festival on a stage with Tim Wu and Carole Cadwalladr, Meta sent a legal threat to the festival and Wynn-Williams, claiming that if by speaking about anything in public, she would violate the arbitrator's order. Accordingly, Wynn-Williams maintained total silence and a blank facial expression for an hour on stage, saying not one word, while Wu and Cadwalladr carried on a discussion. Careless People was withdrawn from the festival bookshop on the days she appeared there:
Nevertheless, Meta has informed Wynn-Williams that her silent, motionless appearance on a stage constitutes a further breach of her "agreement" and that they are going to seek even more damages from her. This act of anti-ice cream thuggery has pushed Wynn-Williams over the edge and now she's sued to invalidate her contract:
Her lawyers have posted their documents related to the suit, including a 285-page declaration by Wynn-Williams explaining the great lengths she's gone to in order to comply with Meta's demands, and the company's absolute intransigence and arbitrary menace:
Why would Meta be so intent on destroying this one high-profile whistleblower? Surely they've heard of the Streisand Effect. There is no better way to ensure that Wynn-Williams' book (already a NYT #1 bestseller) continues to attract readers than to continue to escalate these threats.
I think they're perfectly aware that they are convincing more people to read Careless People (you should read it, it's genuinely excellent):
But I think they've decided that this is a price worth paying, because:
a) They've done even worse things since Wynn-Williams parted ways with the company; and
b) They're laying off thousands of workers because their giant bet on AI has been a flop, leaving them with a massive cash crunch; and
c) By destroying Sarah Wynn-Williams, they can terrorize all those thousands of bitter ex-employees into silence about the even graver sins the company has committed.
Lukashenka knew that arresting children for eating ice cream would make him a laughingstock abroad. Zuckerberg knows that threatening Wynn-Williams for standing in wooden silence on a stage makes him look like history's most guillotineable billionaire. But both Lukashenka and Zuckerberg are willing to be thought a thin-skinned bully, so long as that means the people they oppress the most are too terrified to ever challenge their authority.
Somebody once said that the Inquisition attacking Galileo wasn't to silence Galileo, it was to silence Descartes. And every other person whose work might present a challenge to their authority.
Everybody knew about Galileo, in great part because of their actions. But nobody would ever know about the people they menaced into shutting up.
They know the only way to win a game of Whack-A-Mole is to terrify the moles into keeping their heads down.
Or to terrify enough of the moles that they can take their time making an example of the few moles that do.
Lil funfact for the tlt fandom from a greek speaker. Alectopause is a word
You may know that 'Alecto' (ÎΝΡκĎĎ) as a name translates to Ceasless, as in 'merciless' or 'implacatable', etc etc. Coming from the mythological Fury. A-lecto. Un-ending.
And 'pause' (ĎÎąĎĎΡ) is a word. A greek word in origin.
Therefore, ÎΝΡκĎĎĎÎąĎ ĎΡ (Alectopause) is a perfectly understandable to any fluent speaker word, that means "Unending-Pause". Have a fun one with it
((I am genuinely enjoying the Pause, I would never rush the Pause, I have no issue waiting any amount of time ranging from years to forever and frankly believe Tamsyn should have More⢠Pause, I just think y'all would enjoy this))
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Qualityâ Free Actions
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
so ive been meaning to do this poll for a while because my hypothesis is that seattle is the most Tumblr city, likely in the entire world. tumblr has a huge american majority userbase obviously, but just for comparison going forward, only 0.22% of the american population lives in seattle. as of this reblog, this poll is showing 4% of respondents are seattleites. given, this isnt scientific at all, because my blog just has a lot of seattle connections and seattle followers, but it's still an impressive bias
Autism Representation written by an allistic: My name is John Autism and I like the designated autistic interests
unintentionally autistic character written by the creator who hasn't really thought about whether or not theyre autistic: I wish I could be human like the way everyone else is but I know they can tell I'm not. And I know they're right
To my autistic gang, just letting you know. I see you. Every time that you feel SO incredibly strongly that 'this person is wrong, and surely they will understand if I just explain to them what their misconception is' and then make the concrete decision not to do that, I am acknowledging and appreciating you. I know that it goes against every instinct you have.
Find another autistic person and let them know how brave you were. You did a great job and I am proud of you.
(Note: this is NOT about bigotry, call that shit out wherever you see it)
they're not super common but i really do appreciate characters who are introduced as one gender and later revealed to be closeted trans. i like that it challenges the audience to really think about how they perceive trans people because realistically not every trans person you meet is going to be out to you at first. yes we introduced this character as a man and now we're asking you to reframe her as a woman after you've already gotten to know her. can you be normal about that? can you be normal when it happens to people you know in real life? i hope you can.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Qualityâ Free Actions
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
when I was in high school I had a literature teacher who had a policy of unlimited extra credit. All you had to do was read a book by a notable author (his discretion) and have a little chat with him after school to prove that you read it. No limits, no need for variety (one month I decided I really loved Kurt Vonnegut and just read everything of his I could get my hands on).
Yes, I was tearing through books constantly, and talking to this teacher at least weekly. Because even though I always loved reading as a kid, literature was always a very weak subject for me in terms of a teaching-to-standardized-test school setting (I just do awful on "what color were the curtains" type multiple choice questions. Those details don't stick in my memory THEY JUST DON'T). But that didn't matter for this class. I could just read my way out of any bad test score. I have always had fond memories of how I "fudged" my way through that class and "abused' the extra credit policy.
I was thinking about it again today, and only just now realized that he absolutely tricked me into being well-read, while my teenage self thought I was totally getting away with something. THAT MOTHERFUCKER. I hope he's doing well.
âice water makes you sickâ âice water gives you stomach crampsâ iâm sorry if i have a hardy and oxlike american constitution but unless you have underlying health issues, the only water temperature that should cause adverse health effects is if you chug a gallon of boiling hot water that has also been laced with nefarious chemicals
This misinformation is actually dangerous. If you drink ice cold water after workout, you can freeze and crack your gut mucus that protects you from your own digestiĂłn acids and could create an ulcer.
in drinking ice water, you are functionally adding several ounces of 32° f water into a solid body of 100+ lbs at 98° f.
that water is not doing jack shit to your stomach lining, your body is simply too much of a thermal reservoir. the water is already increased significantly in temperature by the time it reaches your stomach.
in order to actually freeze anything inside your body you have to be drinking liquid nitrogen. ice water is fine!
it might make your stomach nerves uncomfy if you're super sensitive or not used to it, but it's not actually doing you physical harm
also note for everyone under extreme heat this summer who has access safe to ice: you can just hold an ice cube in your mouth to cool yourself down. it's good for you
The European Union already forced Apple to abandon its proprietary charging port and adopt USB-C across its entire iPhone lineup. It just did something bigger. A new EU mandate requires every smartphone sold in Europe including Apple devices to feature a battery that can be replaced by the user without specialist tools, without voiding a warranty, and without sending the device to a manufacturer approved service center. Batteries must maintain a minimum capacity threshold after a set number of charge cycles and replacement parts must remain available for up to ten years after a model goes on sale.
The consumer electronics industry built its current business model around batteries that degrade, cannot be replaced at home, and create a natural upgrade cycle every two to three years. The EU just legislated that model out of existence in the world's largest regulatory market.
Apple, Samsung, and every other manufacturer now faces a choice between redesigning their devices for the European market or accepting that their current hardware architecture is no longer legally sellable there.
Given that no company walks away from European consumers voluntarily the phones are going to change and once they change for Europe the rest of the world will ask why theirs still do not.
You know every show that the premise is like âpeople find out ghosts/monsters/demons are real and are charged with stopping themâ appeal to me way more now as a post-graduate not because I believe in ghosts more or whatever but because can you IMAGINE just being handed a job that you donât even need to apply for? Like just being told âbasically thereâs this bad thing and all you do is make sure it doesnât do what it wantsâ thatâs just customer service baby and I worked that for 6 goddamn years! Just TRY getting past âI have a job to offer youâ before I can jump down your throat agreeing.
some idiot with a dumb ghost-hunting name who joined the Cause because they love the paranormal: oh fuck oh shit this is really scary guys Iâm having second thoughts
me, who knows that if we run away I have to apply to like, a real actual Jobbe again: wakey wakey demons itâs this or retail so guess whoâs got nothing to lose
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Qualityâ Free Actions
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
If you hate narcissistic people you need to unfollow me. Only people who love and support narcissists are allowed on this blog.
For anyone who's still around and wants to be educated, "narcissism" is a personality disorder, which is a fancy way of saying that it's a way of existing, which has real disadvantages, but which has also been effectively criminalized by the medicarceral system. If you hate narcissists, you are complicit in the ongoing social processes which deny them bodily autonomy, human connection, and basic dignity.
Narcissism/being narcissistic/having NPD is not a moral failing. Treating narcissistic people like shit is.
If you don't have NPD it's actually more important you reblog this. It's been really great seeing a lot of people with NPD react to this really positively, but I need everyone who does not have NPD to enforce this for their own blogs too.
-NPD has one of the highest suicide rates of any mood related disorder; slightly less impulsivity based attempts than BPD, but NPD sufferers are more likely to succeed in their attempts.
-NPD, like most cluster B disorders, is generally traumagenic, meaning it usually develops as a means of coping with childhood trauma, abuse, or neglect.
-"Narc abuse" is pop psychology with no real basis in reality. NPD sufferers are infinitely more likely to be abused than become abusers, and are typically more prone to self destructive than anything.
-If your parents sucked shit, it's because they *chose* to treat you like shit, not because they had a magic version of NPD that makes them a Bad Person. sorry you had to find out this way.
-Random people online with NPD aren't your parents and it's really creepy to project your trauma onto them.
treat the NPD sufferers in your life like people or die trying.
