hello vonnie
trying on a metaphor
Cosimo Galluzzi

@theartofmadeline
KIROKAZE
todays bird
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Cosmic Funnies
Not today Justin
Today's Document
🪼
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
cherry valley forever

tannertan36
Stranger Things
$LAYYYTER
we're not kids anymore.

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@sociallyawkwardtoaster

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MYTH: Americans set off fireworks on the 4th of July, in honor of our Independence Day
FACT: Americans set off fireworks from approximately June 20th—July 20th, for no reason other than this is the time of year that you can literally buy them at any grocery store
This is misinformation. They also do this in states where fireworks are illegal. That is because Americans love setting off fireworks.
There's this perception, I've noticed, that if you're going to have a cultural conception of something like "mental health" in your fictional setting it has to be like Ideal, it needs to be the ideal version of mental health awareness/conception/care or it needs to not exist at all even a little. Does that make sense.
Similarly there's also this idea that either a character knows what therapy is, has had some, and has had an overwhelmingly positive experience and result from it, or they have literally no concept of therapy at all, like Harry Du Bois not knowing that he's a cop style. Total blank. Very odd.
The options are not "this story takes place in the Instagram infographic universe" or "you get nothing. Everyone has a caveman's understanding of what depression is." is all I'm saying. Make a setting with a concept of mental health that sucks. Send the character to therapy that doesn't work. Officially diagnose them with something that sucks and is absolutely going to be taken out of the in-universe dsm in a couple of editions. Try something difference.
This is EXACTLY what is needed to calm people with vaccine concerns.
It is completely understandable that people would be worried about vaccines. Unless youre already educated about vaccines, deliberately injecting a baby with a deadly virus DOES sound scary and risky!! And no amount of "just trust me bro" is going to soothe the concerns of that worried individual. Saying "the doctors know what theyre doing, just trust them" is not going to calm the worries of someone with legitimate concerns and unanswered questions.
What WILL soothe their concerns?
Information. Understanding. Explanations. Answered questions.
"This is how vaccines work in general. This is how This Particular vaccine works. This is what can go wrong with it, and this is how likely/unlikely that is to happen. And this is what can go wrong with not having it, and how likely/unlikley that is to happen." No fearmongering, no judgement; just calmly laid out cause and effect.
Have you had the vaccine or given it to your kids? Tell the worried person what your experience was.
I know someone who went to their GP during the early days of the covid vax becoming available, and she told him "I have to get the vax in order to keep my job, but im really worried about it, because its brand new and there hasn't been any long term testing on it yet. Can you please tell me why I SHOULDNT be worried." She straight up asked him that. Said she didn't WANT to be vaccine hesitant, but she had concerns, so could he please explain those concerns away.
He scoffed at her for her concerns and told her to do her own research online. She tried looking into it herself, found a conspiracy page first, fell head first down an antivax rabbit hole, lost her job for refusing to get the vax, and now is a full-scale antivaxxer. After specifically going to the doctor like "hey i dont WANT to be scared of this vax but I am so please put my mind at rest so I can get it."
Had her doc taken the time to answer her valid queries (there WERE no longer term studies on the covid vax! There still arent, because it WAS a brand new vax! It was in fact a valid concern!!) then she would not have fallen down the AV rabbit hole, would not have lot her job, and would not be neck-deep in conspiracy theories today.
Its so important to treat vaccine hesitancy with judgement free explanations and facts. Not only is it the most likely way of convincing someone to get the recommended vaccines, it can also prevent them from sliding into antivaxxer land.
I had rotavirus in 1997 when I was a little over a year old.
We were on vacation in a foreign country, and it was hot, and I didn't want to drink water, and it was NOT a good time for me, my parents, or anyone around us.
In 2021, I took my first baby to her pediatrician and they told me that there was a vaccine for rotavirus.
It BLEW my mind and brought me so much peace. I wish my mom could have had that.
My sister was hospitalized for rotavirus when she was about 18 months. No joke, we thought there was a chance she might not survive--a very slim chance, but still a chance. It was the early 2000s. She stabilized quickly, but still spent a week in the hospital.
I've got my mixed feelings about how many vaccines are given so soon and so quickly, but you better believe my baby got the rotavirus vaccine. Absolutely no second thoughts about that one.
In general if you're actually right and "backed up by the science" then you should not and should never just dismiss people as stupid for having concerns.

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Today's Sea Lion Is: The Gamer
Whoa!! that's actually so impressive
redraw of an old comic cuz i can't looking at it no more (i got lazy at the end :p)
i think this captures the defining pathology of the collective social media psyche right now. we are in the thrall of people who are wantonly cruel but who also demand to be coddled at all times in every way
Not every post can be a 10/10, but never underestimate the power of belabouring a 4/10 bit.
If you do it 10 times, it turns into a 4 bit.
If you do it 20 times, it turns into an 8 bit, and then you can cash in on the nostalgia factor.
If you do it five times, it turns into a 2 bit, which you can cash in for a shave and a haircut

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This has been my main argument against "AI" from the very beginning.
OpenAI scraped the entire web. All of which had been a labor of love from humans. Wikipedia is the backbone of a lot of LLMs, and that was volunteer human labor. They stole it and now they're selling it back to us.
And worse, they're trying to destroy the free sources that they stole from. It's destruction of human knowledge on an unprecedented scale. The burning of the library of Alexandria has nothing on this.
advertising lemonade is pointless. the human body already knows it needs it
1) any stretching is better than no stretching
2) any vegetable is better than no vegetable
3) statistically you will never be the worst person at anything, there is always someone in the world who is worse at stuff than you are
The older i get the more i understand why some people become obsessed with privacy, not because they’re hiding something, but because being constantly perceived starts to feel spiritually exhausting.
Did you know that soda machines at restaurants and movie theaters spy on you? That most common new cars now record your sexual preferences and send it to the manufacturer (and also data about anyone who also gets in your car, walks by your car, and maybe happens to be within visual range of your car)? That grocery stores are trying to force customers to download an app to scan barcodes on shelves instead of putting up prices, so the app can scan the phone, decide how much that customer should be squeezed for, and adjust the price? That more and more innocent people are being sent to jail for crimes committed hundreds of miles away because an AI facial recognition algorithm spit their faces out and the cops didn't bother to do the most basic of checks?
I am not uptight about privacy because I'm hiding something. I'm uptight about it because the people who dismiss my right to privacy are dangerous to you and me and our families, personally, all the time.
And often, they are assholes, too.
He who says there is no hope is your enemy

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Source
An apt metaphor for how the elites will always deal with crises--the little people must suffer to solve the problem, while the powerful will be comfortably ensconced away from the consequences of their decisions.
it’s actually funny when people suggest “yeah if we have minorities become armed they’ll pass gun control real quick” because it happened. It made the government afraid so they passed a law that restricted rights to keep black people down. you are all so keen on repeating history tho
I'm sorely tempted to just start reacting with this every time I see "let's use racism to get gun control passed!" unironically.