lines-and-edges:

Someone I like and respect just made a post about keeping friends when they have shitty politics, and as someone who has been known to remain friends with people who have shitty politics, I wanted to say a few things about it.

I’m starting my own post on the topic, so as not to start a refutation pile-on:

When I extend such people kindness or friendship it’s generally because they’re homeless, hungry, impoverished, marginalized, abused, lacking access to critical thinking education… the list goes on. In any shitty political circle there are the privileged ringleaders and there are the marginalized people they take advantage of.

And the latter… need someone to reach out to them, and quietly, softly let them know there’s a better way.

Sometimes they’re not ready to listen to a direct argument but can still learn by example.

Sometimes being there to give that example is frustrating and draining… and it’s not a task we should expect of everyone! You don’t have to hang around with anyone who is oppressing or mistreating you!

But often, when I can tolerate someone who’s posing a problem to others, I do, because they’re not going to get better without getting that from someone.

And it doesn’t mean I’ve signed onto whatever bullshit they’re desperately clinging to out of misplaced survival instinct.

(Or even not misplaced? For example if the only people helping someone avoid starvation are also defending North Korea on the internet, it’s easy for them to get caught up in it… so you see what I mean when I say that sometimes the necessary counterexample is just showing up and being decent. For one of my friends… that’s what I was, the person who helped her buy basic groceries while not trying to radicalize her.)

And sometimes they come around. Other times they get angry at you for your own politics, or get more privileged and hang onto their shitty politics and you have to cut ties. But I’ve seen people become better this way.

Be angry at the privileged people who exploit; show compassion, when you can, for those exploited.

The hardmode of that is “even when they’re being used to harm others”. It’s hardmode; it’s not for everyone; you have to be good at boundaries and knowing your limits. But… when you can, how you can, it’s worthwhile.

patster223:

In the MBMBAM Seeso Q&A tonight, the brothers talked about how the structure of the show ended up being what it is partially because all the things that they “couldn’t do” because of social anxiety. Like, they couldn’t do man-on-the-street stuff, they couldn’t talk to a ton of strangers, they couldn’t play pranks on people, etc. And the structure of the show ends up feeling very genuine and fun because of those limits? They’re not forcing themselves to do (neurotypical) things they’re not as good at, and in the meantime, working around that stuff begets new ways of doing things. So, like, neurodiverse representation is obviously important because it’s important to be able to see that aspect of yourself in the media you love, but it’s also important because it gives us new structures and kinds of media, and that’s just so exciting to me

tatterdemalionamberite:

saixnipples:

First, a note: I ask that people please reblog this to spread this since the tags are kinda unusable right now, especially when a post has external links within it.

Dreamwidth has been my main active posting platform for a year and a half now, and I’ve noticed a lot of bloggers talking about jumping ship over to DW with tumblr’s uhhhhhh current state of affairs.

But DW is kinda bland and boring if you’re too young to have been of the LiveJournal generation, and therefore don’t know where to look or start in order to build your friends list and find communities, so I’m going to do some of the legwork for you.

the_great_tumblr_purge: I made a dw community specifically for people jumping ship from tumblr to reconnect with each other.

addme: a friending community where you pimp yourself out and find other people with similar interests that you might want to see on your reading page.

addme_fandom: similar to above, only with a stronger emphasis on finding people based on your fandoms.

fandomcalendar: a community where you can find fandom events, such as big bangs, exchanges, challenges, bingos, etc. and other fandom communities that might suit your interests.

questionoftheday: for when you don’t know what to post.

If anybody else has communities they want to add, go right ahead and add them in a reblog.

Please reblog this.

I started Captorfic (dot dreamwidth dot org) back when I joined the Homestuck fandom and before I grudgingly moved to Tumblr, and I’m quite happy to resume operations there if folks want a place to share or enjoy this particular sort of niche fandom content.

Art is also welcome and I’ll gladly update the description in a bit to note that and open it to works featuring other yellowblood trolls.

Speaking of which, is anyone running an active general purpose Homestuck community right now? It didn’t seem so a few days ago, but a lot has just changed.

jetpackexhaust:

The Malcom Fallacy

Dr Malcolm perfectly captured the problem with too much moralizing sci-fi when he whined “your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”Because of course they should! “Should we recreate awesome dinosaurs*?” The answer is obviously yes, utterly yes, that’s the positive control case to test absolute YESness. You don’t ask people that question to find the answer, you already know the answer, you ask people that question to find out if they’re worth talking to.

*a scaled pseudospecies distinct from feathered “actual dinosaurs”.

The real problem is the wrong people asking the wrong questions, then blaming science for delivering overwhelming  experimental evidence of their mistakes. Jurassic Park’s key question wasn’t “Should we recreate awesome dinosaurs?”, it was “Should we unleash those awesome dinosaurs on a safari with worse security and fewer staff than the average Apple store?” No, you shouldn’t have done that. The science spectacularly succeeded in delivering a dinosaur miracle, and then specifically didn’t knock them out of the Park because that tourism screw-up’s entirely on capitalism. No scientist was collecting data for “Quantifying how much money we can make from tourism” or “Material testing the flimsiest fences imaginable with a goddamn Tyrannosaurus Rex”.

That’s the Malcolm Fallacy: blaming science for everyone else’s mistakes. You’ll see it in almost every techno-horror.

  • Should we invent AI? Yes! Should we connect it to military mainframes with nuclear launch authority? No!
  • Should we research viruses? Yes! Should we override the security computer and physically crack open sealed airtight doors when viral labs go into lockdown? No!
  • Should we research teleportation? Yes! Should we experiment on ourselves, alone, without even the most elementary laboratory (or even pizza parlor) standards of cleanliness? No!

Almost every sci-fi horror plot is driven by money-grubbing corporations but it’s the researchers who can’t even afford a change of clothes from their “I’m a scientist!” lab coats who take the blame. And now we have hordes of idiots destroying cropfields and resurrecting defeated diseases while CEOs gold-plate profit reports on basic medicine. 

This and more at ZERO POINT COMEDY

Source: jetpackexhaust

imakegoodlifechoices:

the-hopeful-lark:

tinybro:

so we have a conversational safeword in my group of friends and it’s great, idk why more people don’t do this. whenever someone wants a subject to be dropped immediately no questions asked we just say “spleen” and we stop immediately and it’s a really good way to avoid crossing the line between teasing friends and genuinely upsetting them by accident, or stopping debates from turning into actual arguments

Wait but no this is actually a brilliant idea. 

When I was a little baby high school student, I used to do the Living Chessboard at our local Renaissance Faire. We always used “forsooth” to indicate if someone was actually injured and needed to quickly end a choreographed fight. It was also very useful when doing little street improvisations because if someone tried to stop you, you could say “forsooth good sir, I must leave.” and they knew you couldn’t do a scene right then. We all used it in real life too, to say “no really” and it was amazing because there was a word used in a casual setting that meant “I’m not playing, I need you do listen to me.” So if someone tried to pick me up or tickle me, I could say “forsooth stop.” And I was instantly obeyed. I had “forsooth” long before I learned what a safeword was, and having a non-sexual safeword for everyday use amongst a circle of friends was the best thing ever. It made me feel very safe and listened to, even as a tiny 14 year old. Because let’s be honest, 14 year old me was teeny tiny and adorable and it’s easy to coo at kids when they say “no don’t pick me up!” but to have a word that every single person respected to mean “whatever I say after this MUST be listened to” was amazing. It gave me a definitive voice when it would have been easy to dismiss me.

So basically having platonic safewords is awesome and I’m all for it.