Riv

i am not a psychiatrist but i do find it really weird how autism checklists are so often focused on "outward" signs of autism rather than what is going on internally. i don't know how to explain it but "do you make eye contact with other people" feels like a much less relevant question than "how does it feel when you have to make eye contact with other people?"

We aren’t “discovering” anything when we uncover ancient ruins or artifacts of human history. Human civilization is remembering things that it collectively forgot.

Humanity doesn’t have a collective consciousness.

usually you put out some bangers but sociologists (and some neuroscientists + other cognitive science fields) would disagree with this one

Shout out to the phrase “I’m going to become the joker” for capturing a very specific and real emotion

Something something semiotics something something the importance of media allowing us to capture the raw essence of a multidimensional human experience in one reference, when capturing it in common language would take an essay

Stop volunteering to be the village sacrifice we all know you're not a virgin. The dragon probably wouldn't even be into you.

Untie yourself from that altar right now.

Look. I didn't want to say anything because it's kind of a touchy subject, but the dragon doesn't actually take these "brides" back to its lair full of riches and add them to a harem. Okay? It's a big fucking lizard with a brain the size of an orange, it just roasts and eats them.

That's why we always pick the most useless airhead to sacrifice come harvest season.

Now come on, get those chains off. Where did you even get these? Oh you made them? See that's the kind of craftsmanship the village needs you for. We'll have a big orgy after the ritual and if you want a bunch of us will dress up as dragons and take turns having a go at you. It'll be nice, you'll see.

Yes, yes, I know, not the same. Well not all dreams are attainable, in the end.

There’s almost no faster way to shut someone’s brain off than trying to talk about AI, because both the extreme anti-AI and extreme pro-AI camps often abandon real reasoning in favor of fear or hype. This refusal to engage honestly is exactly why AI will remain a problem: instead of educating, people stall, deny, or retreat into wishful thinking. As a friend once told me, the genie isn’t going back in the bottle, AI is here, and pretending it will disappear is childish. The future we want, one where artists are protected and the environment isn’t sacrificed, won’t come from fantasizing about a world without AI, but from fighting for concrete things now: strong worker protections, environmental safeguards, regulation with teeth, and democratic control over the technology. The more people shut down or refuse to think critically, the harder it becomes to build those real solutions.

I think people mean well when they insist that America isn't a Christian country but it just obfuscates the situation and makes it more difficult for minorities to frame their experiences. America is a fundamentally, structurally, ideologically Christian country from top to bottom. It's exhausting, it's suffocating, and it's the truth. Nearly all political forces, pop culture phenomena, and major life philosophies here are either built on Christianity or propped up as subverting Christianity in a way that is, of course, still entirely about Christianity. Leftwing movements here that are ostensibly hostile to Christianity still ultimately structure their worldviews around their own versions of salvation, rapture, original sin, eternal judgement, heaven, and hell. Most people here fail to see Christianity all around them, influencing every facet of American life, for the same reason that a fish can't see water.