More of a Menshevik Day By Day

[archaeocommunologist]

this blog is unironically pro-horny. if you’re not horny then fuck you.

[archaeocommunologist]

Issuing a clarification: This post is about having an active multi-partner sex life, not about doing jailbait lesbian incest roleplay on Tumblr.

[evilsoup]

And it also takes courage to tell the truth about oneself, about one’s own defeat. Many of the persecuted lose their capacity for seeing their own mistakes. It seems to them that the persecution itself is the greatest injustice. The persecutors are wicked simply because they persecute; the persecuted suffer because of their goodness. But this goodness has been beaten, defeated, suppressed; it was therefore a weak goodness, a bad, indefensible, unreliable goodness. For it will not do to grant that goodness must be weak as rain must be wet. It takes courage to say that the good were defeated not because they were good, but because they were weak.

[apolladay]

be honest, have you ever done cocaine, even just once?

- yes

- no, but i would try it

-no, and i wouldn’t try it

(i apologize if this poll isn’t allowed!! just a debate i was having with friends the other day)

be honest, have you ever done cocaine, even just once?

yes

no, but i would try it

no, and i wouldn’t try it

Voting ended onNov 26, 2025

[itsalwaysdark]

you have to be careful reading too many things that are good/smart/well-written bc then you encounter something that isnt and you get confused like ? why didnt they just make this good ? were they stupid

[thegenderal]

even before i lived in a place with a massive population of feral cats decimating the wildlife i had read the studies and knew the data said that TNR did not work and we need to be trapping and euthanizing feral cats but now that i’ve lived in a place where there are an enormous number of feral cats it’s like, inconceivable to me that anyone supports TNR, not just for the health of the world but for the sake of the fucking cats

[thegenderal]

nobody will even acknowledge it not even in most conservation circles. We have a solution to a massive, massive problem that is more humane, cheaper, easier, takes less time, prevents animal suffering, and saves valuable members of our disappearing ecosystem. And nobody is even willing to theoretically acknowledge that it exists outside of a few very small circles.

[thegenderal]

it works. It works. It is better for the cats. It’s better for the cats. Living in a place where you cannot drive 10 minutes without seeing a new roadkill cat almost every single day really makes you think about how much suffering could have been prevented if we just dealt with the problem we have created. It’s not a pleasant way to go, being hit by a car. Or being ripped apart by a predator, or eating a poison, or starving to death, of dying of an infection, or an illness, or any of the hundred thousand ways an animal in the wild passes without human intervention. Euthanasia is simply falling asleep. It is fucking wild to me that saying you think we should take responsibility for our mistakes and ensure that cats fall asleep peacefully instead of capturing them and then hurling them back out into the world SPECIFICALLY in order to allow them to die in agony makes people treat you like a fucking serial killer.

[thegenderal]

And if you don’t care about cats dying in agony do you care about the world around you? There’s a species of bird we only know ever existed because someone’s cat brought home our only example. That’s horrific. We’ve lost so much biodiversity because we simply won’t listen to the research, which again, has proven that TNR is not effective.

[thegenderal]

a peaceful death is not the worst thing that could happen to an animal.

[thegenderal]

@cathartidae sources for ya!

Sources:

https://ask.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/UW468 “How Effective and Humane Is Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR) for Feral Cats?” 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6523511/ “A Case of Letting the Cat out of The Bag—Why Trap-Neuter-Return Is Not an Ethical Solution for Stray Cat (Felis catus) Management” (also has a thousand references attached that are handy)

Not a reference so much as the human society actively admitting that TNR does nothing to decrease population, actively contributes to harming wildlife, and doesn’t actually help the cats in any way, just reduces some of the nuisance behavior that people complain about: https://www.animalhumanesociety.org/resource/real-impacts-trap-neuter-return

Unscientific from here on out as i don’t feel like trying to find the studies i read in like January of last year:

https://hahf.org/awake/the-trouble-with-trap-vaccinate-neuter-return/ “The Trouble With Trap-Neuter-Re (Abandon!) from the hillsborough animal health foundation, articles also link to studies

https://abcbirds.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/The-Evidence-Against-TNR.pdf from the american bird conservancy, has scientific articles quoted. 

[thegenderal]

Even More Sources on TNR being non-viable and ways that cats are impacting the world from birds to *hawai’i’s monk seals*

Animal Emergency and Referral Center of Minnesota. (2022, October 26). Indoor cats vs. outdoor cats. Animal Emergency & Referral Center of Minnesota. https://aercmn.com/indoor-cats-vs-outdoor-cats/

Campbell, V. (2017, January 25). The Obituary of the Stephens Island Wren. All About Birds. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/the-obituary-of-the-stephens-island-wren/

Castillo, D., & Clarke, A. L. (2003). Trap/neuter/release methods ineffective in controlling domestic cat “colonies” on public lands. Natural Areas Journal, 23(3).

Coe, S. T., Elmore, J. A., Elizondo, E. C., & Loss, S. R. (2021). Free-ranging domestic cat abundance and sterilization percentage following five years of a trap–neuter–return program. Wildlife Biology, 2021(1). https://doi.org/10.2981/wlb.00799

del Hoyo, J., Collar, N., Kirwan, G. M., & Sharpe, C. J. (2022, October 25). Guadalupe storm-petrel (Hydrobates Macrodactylus), version 1.2. Birds of the World. https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/guspet/cur/introduction

Dickman, C. R., & Newsome, T. M. (2015). Individual hunting behaviour and prey specialisation in the house cat Felis catus: Implications for conservation and management. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 173, 76–87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2014.09.021

Edge. (2019, June 19). Guadalupe storm-petrel. EDGE of Existence. https://www.edgeofexistence.org/species/guadalupe-storm-petrel/

Galbreath, R., & Brown, D. (2004). The tale of the lighthouse-keeper’s cat: Discovery and extinction of the Stephens Island wren (Traversia lyalli). Notornis, 51(4).

Hawai’i Department of Land and Natural Resources. (2025). Feral cats. Feral Cats. https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/hisc/info/invasive-species-profiles/feral-cats/#:~:text=Feral%20cats%20on%20islands%20have,kill%20approximately%202.4%20billion%20birds.

Loss, S. R., Will, T., & Marra, P. P. (2013). The impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife of the United States. Nature Communications, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2380

McGregor, H., Legge, S., Jones, M. E., & Johnson, C. N. (2015). Feral cats are better killers in open habitats, revealed by animal-borne video. PLOS ONE, 10(8). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133915

Medina, F. M., Bonnaud, E., Vidal, E., Tershy, B. R., Zavaleta, E. S., Josh Donlan, C., Keitt, B. S., Corre, M., Horwath, S. V., & Nogales, M. (2011). A global review of the impacts of invasive cats on Island Endangered Vertebrates. Global Change Biology, 17(11), 3503–3510. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02464.x

National Research Council. (1992, January 1). Scientific Bases for the Preservation of the Hawaiian Crow. U.S. National Library of Medicine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK235935/

NOAA. (2024, August 29). Toxoplasmosis and its effects on Hawaiʻi Marine Wildlife. NOAA Fisheries. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/pacific-islands/endangered-species-conservation/toxoplasmosis-and-its-effects-hawaii-marine

Read, J. L., Dickman, C. R., Boardman, W. S., & Lepczyk, C. A. (2020). Reply to Wolf et al.: Why trap-neuter-return (TNR) is not an ethical solution for Stray Cat Management. Animals, 10(9), 1525. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10091525

Reed, L. (2022). The effects of free-roaming cats on native wildlife populations. Wildlife Rehabilitation Bulletin, 40(1), 17–21. https://doi.org/10.53607/wrb.v40.250

Salano, E. (2024, October 5). Eliciting the effect free roaming cats have on Native Hawaiian wildlife using stable isotope analysis. UKnowledge. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/biology_etds/103/ 

Steele, J. H., Thorpe, S. A., & Turekian, K. K. (2009). Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences. Academic Press. 

science says it’s long past time to stop prolonging the suffering of feral cats, for the sake of the people, the native wildlife, and the goddamn cats themselves.

[boundless-ennui]

I was at a friend's house to check on carcasses I had macerating in his yard. A little grey cat ran up to me, yelling her head off in friendliness and wanting nothing more than to be pet. I had nothing to give her but let my friend know he should catch her since she was so friendly. I am ashamed to admit I didn't give her much thought beyond that, finishing my work and giving her a last pet before going home.

My friend told me how he'd seen her before but she always vanished before he could catch her. He works far too many hours and is always tired so he couldn't prioritize catching this cat.

Three months pass with no sign of her. I go back with my partner to check on carcasses and this same little grey cat appears. This time, however, a tooth has been snapped off and her tongue is so badly cut that she can't keep it in her mouth. She was thin and dirty and screaming to please be given some food.

This time I couldn't look away. I asked my friend's girlfriend if I could borrow a cat carrier. She loaned me one and a tin of wet food that the grey cat willingly followed into the carrier. She didn't care at all about being put into the carrier - all she wanted was a hand on her. She'd arch up against the top just so my hand would rest on her back for a moment.

We drove through rush hour traffic to the only shelter still open. We knew we couldn't keep her and I couldn't stand the thought of putting her back out on the streets to die slowly.

The shelter couldn't take her. Her ear was clipped so she was a "community cat" and outside their ability to help. They tried desperately to offer alternatives to me as I cried over her carrier, knowing I couldn't take her home but also that if I didn't I couldn't live with the thought of her back on the streets.

I made a Hail Mary call to a local friend who is very connected in our city. They didn't have my number saved but answered all the same to hear me sobbing about a cat I'd found and to please help me find a place for her. Please. If I don't find something then she'll be alone on the streets again to die.

My friend came through. I could keep the cat in their garage overnight and in the morning my friend would be back in the city and could find someone to help the cat.

The shelter folk gave me a crate and some food - their hands were tied but they didn't want to leave me with nothing. They were good people doing the best they could in their own system. Community cats were ones they weren't allowed to "waste" resources on. Ostensibly they'd been dealt with and their fate decided. There was nothing the shelter folks were allowed to do for them.

I took the cat to my friend's garage. She was settled into a crate on towels, happy as a clam to be warm and safe. This was a cat made to be loved and to love, as she immediately began trying to groom one of my friend's roommates. He stayed in the garage with her, giving her food and water and in exchange having no say on whether she was in his lap or not. She was always in his lap.

Nobby Nobbs (so named for the only other character known to man that is as scrungly as she is) was then formally adopted by my friend. Her tongue has healed, her fur remains scrungly, and she's every bit the rabid love bug I suspected her to be when she came to me yelling to be pet.

She's a TNR cat. Someone thought they were doing her a kindness in that and if nothing else she didn't add kittens to the world but that doesn't negate the pain she suffered before I found her - the broken teeth, the lacerated tongue, the ulcerated cheeks, the flea-bald patchiness of her coat.

I say this as someone who adores this cat and has the privilege to see her loved and cherished: I wish she'd never had to suffer what she did. I wish people were alright making the harder call that leads to less misery on the side of the cats.

TNR is a polite fiction, nothing more. Just so the humans can pretend they've done right by the same cats they're letting loose to die miserably somewhere else. As long as the humans don't see it it's fine.

The shelter folks told me she's a community cat and that I could take her home and release her by my house. Then I could feed her myself and keep up with her and know where she was! I could still keep her, after a fashion.

I am not proud of how I snarled back that I would never exchange a quick death for a slow one. I would be giving her a different funeral plot, not giving her a life. Even near me she'd be just as vulnerable to the innumerable predators that find cats quite delicious, let alone cars and poisons and the other cruelties humans practice on stray cats.

She's the second stray cat I've met that when I held them the cat melted in my arms, purring and so desperately wanting to be loved. The first cat I was able to trap and take to a local shelter only to find when I called to check on him a day later that his health had been so terrible, so beyond help, that he'd been put down. All the love in that tiny body lost because the people I lived beside didn't care enough to trap the cats they had.

My partner was asleep. I woke her up to crawl into her arms and sob, my heart breaking for the stupidity of the humans who hadn't cared enough to grant this poor little cat the chance to be either an indoor cat, loved and cared for, or to grant him a quick death long before I met him. I've other stories of the cats they kept around, essentially feeding the poor souls to the predatory birds and wandering dogs that frequented our area.

TNR doesn't work. It is a lie humans tell ourselves so we can pretend we haven't failed these animals on a massive scale. Cats are invasive and cause massive harm in their turn. It is humanity who needs to deal with this crisis, this horror we've made, and I pray one day we look it square in the face and vow to make it right.

[thegenderal]

sorry

[dykeofalltrades]

for the record, this includes barn and farm cats. ive grown up in a place where theyre common. theyre not better off

[max1461]

Thinking about different websites...

The worldview of redditors is really Bronze Age or perhaps Iron Age in a truly interesting way. Deeply transactional, concerned with honor and commanding honor, with everything founded on property relations. The comments of any AITA post will evince this. It is "patriarchal" not in the sense of being misogynistic (which it sometimes is and sometimes isn't), but in the sense that it is structurally like the morality of the archetypal Patriarch of the isolated family unit, very Indo-European. The Man who rules his own little kingdom, his family, and who deals with other such Men through a certain kind of economically-inspired honor code. Most redditors are liberal enough that they deal with their spouses as other Men though, and indeed with their children once they reach a certain age. But I think even this has some historical precedent.

It's all about who has the Right to do what, you see, it's about who can and who can't and who must. Very Norse, very Bronze Age, very Indo-European. The redditor sees themself (actually or aspirationally) as on top and as agentic. They speak positively of learning hard lessons and of teaching hard lessons. Their world is a world of contracts, not abstract and mathematical but specific and personal.

This is notably not the ideology of 4chan, which anyone who's been on that site much should know. 4chan's ideology is much less confident in itself. The 4channer sees themself as beneath, not on top, either with acceptance or with resentment. Frantz Fanon might have something to say about it. The 4channer is the subaltern.

And here? I was going to say that tumblrianas are somewhat domesticated, but I don't think this is exactly right. It's more like the world-sense of eunuchs in a harem, desperate for stimulation. Scholastic (though not scholarly) and estranged from the world—from normalcy—for reasons they can't escape. And they know this, and have mostly elected not to try. "Eh", say they, "I will read about life in one of my books," or perhaps just as commonly "I will simulate an outside-life in here with the other eunuchs, and it will be better than what they can make on the outside anyway". Maybe that's true; it probably depends on you and your eunuch crew.

I don't think I'm any of these types of guy. I've spent more of my life as a lurker than a poster. Lurkers are a whole other type of deal.

This is of course all "bullshit" you must understand.

[yorickless]

Chicago

Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player

bit of a banger I think

[archaeocommunologist]

The Americans crowing and laughing at the European football fans who think they can walk up the I-95 to the world cup stadium (or whatever it is) truly fill me with such contempt. "Stupid Europeans, don't they realise how shitty and stupid and violent our country is? Don't they know that our infrastructure sucks shit and you can't walk anywhere and you're forced to drive? American Pig-Dog Motorists drool at the thought of mowing down pedestrians, and this is a good thing! Ha ha!"

Like please have some self-respect.

[captain-price-returns]

Man, Xi Jinping knows more American culture and history than most Americans.

[captain-price-returns]

[sashayed]

has anyone figured out how to turn off the thing where you love your pet so much it slides inexorably into grief-borrowing

[boomstab-papa]

[your-cosmic-creature]

“For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.”

[vriskakinnieaynrand]

my job on the leftist commune will be maintaining high-frequency trading infrastructure to provide liquidity to capital markets

[archaeocommunologist]

"does the panty shot hurt women or is it just hot" Tumblr tranfeminists asking the hard-hitting questions out here!

[bambamramfan]

Leftists: Shells vs Wings

The Scandinavian countries that American progressives hold up as models of socialist paradise make it easier to fire people than the United

One left approach says: the good life comes from the job. Make the job good. Protect workers from arbitrary firing, mandate benefits, give unions real power over working conditions, regulate hours, enforce seniority. If you get a job, that job should be a place where you have dignity and stability and a say in what happens to you. The other approach says something genuinely different, and it’s weirder than people usually give it credit for. It says: let the market be ruthless. Let companies hire and fire freely. Let unprofitable firms die. Instead, tax the enormous wealth that a dynamic market produces and use it to build a society so comprehensively generous that losing your job is an inconvenience rather than a catastrophe. Universal healthcare, free education, subsidized childcare, unemployment benefits that replace most of your income, retraining programs that actually work.

[glitter-hound]

[archaeocommunologist]

I think the problem, over and over, is that people just don't understand the magnitude of their task. I see this with the NGOs I work with, where they'll say things like "well if we could just get the right designation and then core funding, everything would be smooth sailing." You don't understand how big an ask that is! You don't realize that you're talking about sweeping reforms along with a serious shift in power away from central government!

And I come up against this over and over in the history of the world socialist movement. Building communism is unimaginably hard! It's a centuries-long project! And yet revolutionaries the world over were like "we'll just sweep into power and abolish wage labor." Wrong! Wrong and bad! Take your fucking time or it will be taken for you.

[archaeocommunologist]

Sorry to all my friends and relations for not posting so much, I've been getting fucked in the ass!

[str-ngeloop]

you will struggle to say the unsayable thing for five years straight. and then it will suddenly become easy on a Wednesday morning

[thewitchway]

"Why did you say this so suddenly?"

"I didn't say it suddenly - I've been getting ready for this sentence for 5 years."

"Why didn't you just say it 5 years ago?"

"Because the sentence took 5 years to prepare."