wait what

eyes hit serious diminishing returns wrt resource costs vs vision quality as they get bigger, so the question became: what the FUCK do giant (and colossal) squid need to see so badly that they couldn't see with swordfish-sized eyes that's justifying that massive energy cost? that nothing else in the deep ocean needs to see so fucking badly??

turns out the one strength eyes that big really have over much smaller eyes is: seeing large glowing objects in water deeper than 500 meters from an appreciable distance.

sperm whales are the primary predator of giant squid. sperm whales don't glow. BUT! water that deep is full of bioluminescent creatures-- these creatures light up when bumped into. something a sperm whale's size is continuously bumping into those critters, it's just surrounded by a glowing field all the time when it's swimming at those depths, visible from a distance-- if you have the right eyes-- as a massive glowing shape. so basically the only reason to have eyes the size of soccer balls is if you live in the deep ocean and your life depends on having a heads up when a hungry sperm whale lurking around

I really like how the scientology speedrunning trend is developing, in this clip we see that the participants are

Not deterred by the closed door

Working as a group

Protecting their identities

Inflicting material costs to the institution via property destruction

Getting away at the end

spooky shit

deliberately(?) unsolvable mysteries

Man ranting on the internet about the Superbowl halftime show or complaining that something is "woke"? Hobbyless Behaviour. Girls mocking another girl for not looking right? Hobbyless Behaviour. Mindless vandalism? Hobbyless Behaviour.

No you're absolutely correct. I said the same thing a couple months ago about Venezuela, as there were people ALSO saying that the attack against Venezuela was a distraction from the Epstein files.

Like it's not only thoughtless and callous, it also a) reveals a worldview with no sense of scale or priorities when it comes to international politics, and b) implicitly makes the point that you're in the wrong if you give a shit about what's going on in Iran or what's going on in venezuela or on any other country they're gonna say it about next time.

The whole "distraction from the Epstein Files" theory could have some grain of truth to it. This wouldn't be the first time a US president engaged in a strategically pointless escalation of Imperialist aggression that was plausibly motivated by a domestic scandal. Bill Clinton ordering a missile attack on the Al-Shifa Pharmaceutical Factory in Sudan in the August of 1998, a week after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, is a well known example of this But whatever the specific motivations of Trump and his clique, however much or little thought went into it, the end result is the same.

like it doesn't really matter. even IF they intended it as a distraction it's not one! even IF you understand the war is the bigger issue, pointing out that it might have been intended as a distraction isn't a gotcha! that tells you nothing except "states are always doings a lot of things at once", no shit sherlock.

the facts are: the USA wants to disarm a potential nuclear power in SWANA for oil. and the only reason the U.S. bourgeoisie is able to spill the blood of children (and trans women, and racialized women, etc) for fun is because they spill the blood of SWANA for profit.

if you eliminate 1000 Epsteins overnight, there will be more imperialist wars and more Epsteins. if you eliminate the USA's capacity for imperialist wars, the number of billionaire sex traffickers will dwindle.

or, to repeat myself: despicable rulers are not an American aberration that creates unjust wars. unjust wars are an American aberration that creates despicable rulers.

Like "You have to venture into the scary insane asylum!" VS "You're a patient who was admitted by force to an asylum, and you are very clearly in real danger, but everyone is pretending that you're just deluded, and are essentially leaving you to die because they don't really see you as a person."

It's been interesting to see what media people are recommending based on the first post alone. A lot of recommendations for games/franchises like World of Darkness, Carrion, Kill All Humans, Among Us, etc. It's interesting because these are games that put you into the shoes of the violent other that has to infiltrate, without actually challenging the idea that the other is a threat. They actually parrot the ideas of the other as violent.

Funnily enough, the people recommending the comedy game Octodad understand the post much better than most of the people recommending horror media. A few mentions of Am I Nima, which isn't finished yet but does look like it could be what I am describing, so brownie points to the people recommending that.

But everyone saying stuff like "This is just being Trans/Autistic/Etc" really gets it, like really really gets it. Horror always communicates the fears and anxieties of the people who create it, this post was basically: "What if instead of communicating the fear of the other, we communicated the fears of the others, which are actually vastly more legitimate than the dominant groups fear of the other. We should recognise that it is overwhelmingly the others who are the ones who actually suffer and die, all for the perceived "saftey" and "comfort" of the dominant group."

This idea is about transphobia, it is about ableism, about anti-imigrant rhetoric and white supremacy, about queerphobia, it's about all of it. It is horror from the perspective of minority groups. It is the twisting of a trope built upon reactionary fears and narratives in order to critique them, it is a direct allegory for all those experiences you are describing.