Speaking of the Ocean to Frogs in a Pond

something that's always stuck with me is Adorno's critique of liberal research on fascism - that liberal scientists believe you can approach fascism in good faith by simply asking Nazis what they think about the world and then writing it down. He argued that fascism is itself a bad faith ideology, and that Nazis will not usually answer the question "do you want to exterminate all minorities?" truthfully, especially not when asked by academics (who are all Marxists/Jews/etc plotting to destroy civilization). So in order to accurately capture fascist sentiment, you have to conceal your intentions and basically lie to them. And there are real moral imperatives for social scientists to do this, in the same way that journalists go undercover in white supremacist groups to report on their activities and beliefs. There's even that famous East German documentary where the directors lied to a Nazi military leader about being West German filmmakers, got him drunk, and then just filmed him saying Nazi shit lol. So like the conventions of science itself, the idea that good research is necessarily always transparent, is a political assumption that shapes how you conduct research and acquire knowledge

The world's very last smol bean was harvested this morning

A random white boy there is indeed historically accurate Chinese Civil War

Ukraine is a neo-nazi state whose government was formed through a coup d'etat.

Happy Smallpox Eradication Day

In more sensible religions the gods just destroy creation entirely and start over from scratch. "Hey we made these people out of wood and they suck, burn them. Hey we made these people out of clay and they suck, burn them. Alright these corn people seem to be working out, good work team." You know? Yahweh sent a flood but he didn't even take us all out, so what was the point?

(For those not in the know, @castformbignaturals is alluding to the fact Memphis is a majority Black city that stands to have its congressional representation entirely wiped out by redistricting led by the Republican governor of Tennessee who has, of course, welcomed the ICE occupation with open arms. Again, the project of MAGA is to reintroduce Jim Crow)