a Lily without gilding

However. I do not think "just fucking get over it and talk to people lol" is a helpful thing to tell people with social anxiety. I don't think telling people to just get over their fucking disability will help them manage their fucking disability. How about some of y'all get over the idea that social anxiety is some non-issue that only lazy people who "don't want to put in the work to be healthy" struggle with.

Have you instead considered posting actual encouragement? Scripts to ease their anxiety? Teaching people the game of worst case, best case, most likely case? Literally anything else?? "Just get over it" is the most bullshit "advice" in the world. "If you have difficulty talking to people you're a loser who needs to grow up and just do it anyway" is, believe it or not, extremely unhelpful! So perhaps STFU!

I'm not Jewish. I say that because unfortunately it feels like that needs to be clarified - and not in a "so I can't speak directly to the impact of this because it's not my story so you should listen to those who are being affected" (that's still true and you should do it) but because part of the antisemitism is dismissing Jewish people when they bring it up.

And I imagine this post will get me a lot of messages/responses about freeing Palestine - and I agree, lots of horrible things are happening to Palestinians. But this post is about the horrible things that are happening to Jewish people.

I'm Canadian. The things I read about antisemitic hate crimes have nothing to do with helping Palestinians. How does damaging property in Canada or attacking a person in Canada help?

I don't want to hear about the mental gymnastics or outright hateful logic you use to make it ok to attack a marginalized community. Instead, just go head and block me. Stop following. We don't need to interact with each other.

The harm that is being done toward Jewish communities and individuals over the world is heartbreaking. The lack of support/outrage/solidarity that is being shown to those individuals and communities is shameful for the rest of us. Call it out. Stand up. Correct information that is harmful. Listen and read and learn and try to understand instead of scratching your head and finding reasons for why this kind of aggression and discrimination is ok actually.

Not only do you struggle to manage your symptoms but you have no choice but to watch yourself decline if you're unable to access proper care, especially in a timely manner. The control over your health and your body feels out of your hands. We are only as healthy as the resources and treatments that are available to us.

And this makes me question, whose body is this?

Because the less treatment you get, the more you lose control of your health, and the more power doctors hold over your body.

I've worked out five days a week, for the past FOURTEEN YEARS. (Minus a few small breaks like my dad dying, covid lockdown, and a couple surgeries) Which my doc already knows.

However, I do think this case is great example of what happens when smart people decide they can use these systems “responsibly.”

Let’s put aside the plagiarism and the energy use for a second (not that these don’t matter, but they’re not relevant to my point at the moment) and pretend these systems were made with entirely properly obtained info and ran on only solar, but otherwise were entirely the same. If you’re a person, you might think “okay, I’m going to only use this to come up with ideas for my next paper: I’m going to do all the research myself and the writing, I’m just gonna brainstorm topics.”

The thing is, even if you’re trying to limit use to just “brainstorming” the chatbot isn’t going to limit itself to just brainstorming. You might ask it “what should I write about involving Greek history” and it may suggest “the plague of Athens” but it’s also going to suggest some “basic info” on the plague of Athens that you might end up picking up and deciding your topic is. It’s going to provide you with “research.” And even if you decide to check that research yourself, that’s still setting you down a specific path you might not have picked organically.

And speaking of double checking its “research”, fact checking is a time heavy process. Not only now do you have to read the original text the bot provided, but you also have to compare it line by line with the summary the bot provided. That’s more time than it would have taken to just read the article by itself. And with any time heavy task, people are going to get lazy. And in original research being lazy might mean skimming a paper or an abstract, chatbots allow you to be lazy without looking at the article at all.

And soon enough, despite telling yourself you were only going to use it for brainstorming, you have offloaded topic generation, research and eventually even drafting because that’s what these bots are intended to do. They are not meant to serve as research tools or help brainstorm or serve as a bouncing off board: they are built to encourage maximum engagement. And that means if you go at them with the best of ethical intentions, they are built to tempt you to use them as much as possible, regardless of whatever line you drew in the sand for yourself.

Sit or stand upright.

Overlap your hands and place them on your breast bone.

Tilt your head upward and slightly to the left until you feel a gentle stretch along the front and side of the neck.

Hold for 10 seconds.

Repeat on the other side, tilting your head up and slightly to the right.

Stretch each side three times.

don't be afraid. don't be afraid. go to work. go out to eat. don't be afraid.

They weren't killed by the slashing of the CDC. They weren't killed by the administration's demonization of masks, that brought on by the vanity of one man who didn't want his bronzer to come off. They weren't killed by an industrial food system which will only do things Right if it's forced to, if it's inspected and made to, and over which there are far fewer watchdogs than there used to be. No! Don't worry. They were killed by underlying conditions.

don't be afraid. don't be afraid. the engines must keep running. don't be afraid.

Don't think about the fact that 12% of the population, or just about the same percentage of the population that marked themselves as Black on the 2020 Census, has diabetes. Don't think about the fact that 10% of the US population, or approximately the same percentage which has blue eyes, has at least one autoimmune disease. Don't think about the fact that 6% of the adult US population, or approximately the same percentage as 'people under the age of five', has a chronic heart condition. Don't think about the fact that the CDC says that 40% of the US population is obese, and that is an "underlying condition," too. That percentage? It's about the same as every US resident between the ages of 25 and 54.

don't be afraid. don't be afraid.

"Underlying conditions" is a way to wave away responsibility, yes, but it's more than that. It's a way to put separation between the average citizen and the two people -- so far -- who have died from food infested with parasites, the two people who literally shit themselves to death because the Trump administration has fully abandoned all of its proper functions in order to strip down everything it can get its hands on and cart it away for itself. It is not enough to grift billions through American Liberty World Financial Bitcoin, Gold Shoe, And Bible-Printing Emporium. It is not enough to set up a literal "please bribe the President" ATM for foreign governments to shovel cash in via cryptocurrency. They have to grab everything they can that isn't nailed down, and to do that, they have to rip everything they can out of the walls, fire everybody they can get away with, and shuffle the money into ICE, and from their into the pockets of friends no-bid contracts.

It is not enough, and so they whisper "underlying conditions," because that tells so many Americans, "Hey. Don't be afraid. It's okay. You don't have 'underlying conditions,' right? You are good and virtuous. You have done Everything Right, and are thus blessed with Good Health. You have Worked Hard and Been Proper and thus you will not be touched by the seemingly-random hand of fucking death hiding in a bag of Kroger lettuce." It's the same voice that says, "You don't want those layabouts getting disability and cheating you out of your money, so we should make it harder," except now it's saying, "Actually, just like COVID, the only people who died were the people who were sick already, and obviously you only have underlying conditions if you weren't taking care of yourself, which you are, so don't worry! We don't actually have to do anything. This will sort itself out."

and the person at the front desk tells you that they can't just accept it right then and there

and that there's a form on the website for you to fill out

and that here's the contact information for the manager of the collection

and that once you've filled out the form you should follow up with the collections manager

and that they really cannot just take the artifacts from you right here and now

yes even though it's just right outside in your car

yes even though you've driven it all this way

yes even though the pictures you're showing them on your phone do look relevant to our museum

if any of this ever happens to you