Star Ringer

I know this is due to my particular constellation of interests, but for me the funniest thing about the "everything in a given century happened simultaneously" view of history being applied to the 1900s is bumping into increasing numbers of people who are genuinely unclear on whether Dungeons & Dragons pre-dates or post-dates The Lord of the Rings.

tolkien had to call them hobbits to avoid running afoul of Hasbro's trademark of the word 'halfling'

If your system doesn't account for the fact that Parents Are Going To Be Abusive/Neglectful/Insufficient then it objectively sucks I'm sorry I don't make the rules

actually I think you should be normal about ordinary citizens of authoritarian countries and yes that applies even to that country you're thinking of right now

If you're a new writer and you're asking yourself "is this too personal, is this too much, will people think this is weird" that feeling is the exact location of your actual voice. The stuff that makes you want to close the laptop is the stuff nobody else could write. The safe version is always worse. Always. I have never once read something and thought "this would have been better if it was a little less honest." go further. It's always go further.

"convince your followers that their Oppressor Class (whether real or imagined) is less deserving of human rights" is the oldest and most reliable trick in the book to incite mass violence, and you're not immune to it because you're a Good Person with Correct Opinions. you will continue to be a potential breeding ground for fascist thought until you stop dehumanizing people in any context, regardless of whether they deserve it or not, or how serious you are. there can be no acceptable targets.

“Anything goes as long as it’s punching up” is also the central tenet of antisemitism. Leftists think Jews are the ultrawhite ruling class, worst of the worst of whiteness, and conservatives think we’re a race secretly controlling the world and pretending to be white as a plot to bring down the white race. People who believe the latter are in charge of the US government rn. The nature of antisemitism is that we serve as a misdirect for the people with real power. Whatever issues you care about, people in power will find a way to blame the Jews. I cannot remember the exact quote or who it’s from, but I will paraphrase it anyways. Depending on who you ask we’re communists, capitalists, nationalists, rootless cosmopolitans, white, least white, liberals, conservatives, fascists, anarchists, or whatever other “existential and powerful” threat one may believe exists. But what we never are to these people is human. We’re the monsters who hurt them and so it’s okay to hurt us. The truth doesn’t matter, of course, because they aren’t actually afraid of us. We’re just a safer and easier target, and the lie that hurting us is dangerous and makes a change is easier than the hard truths and dangers one must face to fight real power. As Jean-Paul Sartre said, “If the Jew did not exist, the antisemite would invent him.” Because it is not about the truth, but having a comforting lie that you can make positive change through abusing the vulnerable.

i want lists and solutions by the time i finish this jiyuiceh box. warning ⚠️ I. AM. TIRSTY! and it is ᶠʳᵘᶦᵗ punch! and it is delicious

The way all the 2020s have done so far have been making me categorically against every new generation of tech that comes out is insane. Like I'm from a technological boom generation, saw the first portable phones, nokias & blackberries & flipphones etc, and the first smartphones, and the first ipods & ipads & tablets in general while still having cassettes & DVD & MP3 players around so I know how all of it work, I had computer classes in high school, I did the transition between home desktop computers to laptops and back to gaming computers. But then they started to put internet in your printer & microwave, everything has ads & AI now and every update is worst than the last. I literally loved technology and they ruined it

I just read a book in which the moon explodes, and starts fracturing into smaller pieces which eventually rain down onto Earth's surface making it unlivable for hundreds of years. Even in that story, sticking by Earth was the better decision.

It's eugenics. It's always eugenics.

My response to "We can terraform Mars!" is always the same: "Until we have the technology to terraform the Sahara Desert, we don't have the technology to terraform Mars. Do that first, then we can talk about shipping all that tech to a different planet with way worse conditions."

this post has more people in my inbox defending working for lockheed martin than you'd expect