#bellcurve

 Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

I mean, if you saw my last answer, this should come as no surprise AT ALL but the Bel//larke fandom is the Confirmed Worst. They are the Harmony of the modern era and I cannot believe I had to live through the Harry Potter ship wars just to watch Harmony 2.0 rise again in The 100 fandom. Obviously, I know that there are certainly reasonable individuals in the fandom, but the fandom groupthink is hella strong and trends towards being wildly reactionary, seemingly incapable of seeing nuance, and more than a little misogynistic. 

I’m constantly ?????? at the fact that Bell//arkers are so deep into their cups with Clarke hate like HOW! DOES! THAT! MAKE! SENSE! SHE IS HALF YOUR SHIP???????? 

Just kidding, I’m not that ???? about it, because, you know, misogyny. 

The fandom also engages in the most ridiculous hypocritical bullshit - like, I cannot tell you how I had to see post after post from confirmed Bell//arkers about how fucked up it was that Octavia beat her brother, and then have this same damn fandom talk about how Clarke needed to get her ass beat/the shit slapped out of her, like, alright Nancy, once again I see your internalized misogyny. 

They also seem incapable of enjoying the show in any way, shape or form unless it’s about their ship? And thus I have to see all sorts of truly bizarre and often hilarious word salad meta that basically amounts to “Bell//amy said the word key in that one scene that one time, which means he’s the key and that must mean that Bell//arke is the key that will save everyone except that Clarke can’t be a key because she’s a terrible person and Octavia doesn’t deserve her brother’s love because love is the real key and there is no love purer than Bell//amy’s.” 

From 18th century bar trick to scientific staple: "The Math That Explains Why Bell Curves Are Everywhere" @quantamagazine.bsky.social

(Plus- Norman Borlaug)

Uh O. Charles Murray hath returned with more myopic race academic hot air?

Haven't read this book, but I know the author well. Have two of his past writings, incuding the important #BellCurve tome.

A GoodReads (VagaBond of Letters) user posted a rather excellent review, however:

As perfect and gentle a primer into the thorny jungle of the most important social and political facts facing the West as has yet been written.

Murray walks the reader through the evidence, compiling cases which are cumulatively irrefutable on the level of logic or empirical evidence to even the staunchest intersectionalist. The sources and methods are in the text and explained simply and in English instead of buried in endnotes, assuming prior knowledge of statistical experiment design.

Murray attempts to walk a middle path, which is his only weakness, expecting the left to repudiate its extremists (the 'moderating ideological triggers') without, in my opinion, understanding the shape of politics which perforce moves the Cathedral ever leftward, nor does he properly reckon the strength of the evolved group-identity modules explicated in social identity theory and genetic similarity theory: the atavistic 'jungle' is invading the egalitarian and individualist 'garden', to extend the author's metaphor, irreversibly.