what you love protects you

“Nobody:

Girls that bullied goth kids in high school:”

—

“He gave his lectures in a very, very small room and didn’t address us, his audience, at all. In fact he looked the other way, with his face almost squashed up against the blackboard. He spoke in a mutter. His mind was on finishing Lord of the Rings, and he was really musing to himself about the nature of narrative. But I found this so fascinating that I came back week after week, as did one other person. I’ve always wondered what became of him, because he was obviously equally fascinated. And because we stuck there, Tolkien couldn’t go away and write Lord of the Rings! He would say the most marvelous things about the way you take a very basic plot and twitch it here and twitch it there—and it becomes a completely different plot.”

—-Diana Wynne Jones

#I don’t know if I find this more enchanting for a really interesting discussion on worldbuilding and narrative #or the fact that DIANA WYNNE JONES PREVENTED JRR FROM WORKING ON LOTR A WHOLE SEMESTER BECAUSE SHE MADE HIM DO HIS JOB OH MY GOOOOOOOD THAT #IS #HILARIOUS #I LOVE HER SO MUCH

(via basileus)

THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE FACTS ABOUT DIANA

also can you imagine 1) studying at Oxford and 2) studying at Oxford during an era when both JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis were lecturers? 

like without government intervention, strawberry jam would have wood in it. like it's a thing. food companies realized that they could use less of the expensive strawberries as ingredients and just use wood. there are laws you cannot legally call it strawberry jam if you do this. you have to call it a strawberry product or spread. food companies are always trying to get that shit through. they have lobby groups pushing that all the time

it is more expensive to put metal detectors in a food processing plant. companies want to cut costs. it is a legal requirement in a lot of countries to have them. so it forces companies to install them.

also to do routine inspections. that is a government requirement. so are building codes. a lot of codes are the bare minimum. like some companies will exceed the code and have more protections but a lot don't. like if it is not in the code, they don't do it. so that's why having governing bodies that regulate building safety, worker safety, food safety and product safety are crucial. because without them, your employer will not see the need to have exit doors with quick release handles, or do routine fire sprinkler inspections or have road salt for the sidewalks. some of it is basic fucking stuff.

companies when left alone do not regulate themselves. it's been historically untrue. companies want to give you a product that is cheap for them to make and that they can sell at the highest price so they can get the most profit. for everyone who loves capitalism, that's what it is. the free market will not self-regulate. if you don't have anti-monopoly laws and anti-wage theft laws and workers' protections, the open market will not fix that organically.