This Is Your Captain Speaking

2016 has been an amazing year for the people who hate people.

Some of these are really great

I'm just gonna answer my favorites. You can find the whole thing here: http://lizznotliz.tumblr.com/post/153803599045/these-are-actually-hella-fucking-cute-yall

1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk?

I try to have JUST enough milk to soak my cereal but it always ends up more.

3: what random objects do you use to bookmark your books?

My phone.

5: are you self-conscious of your smile?

Yeah kinda.

7: do you name your plants?

I name other people's plants. And dogs. The names usually stick. My mum kept coming up with crappy names for her shitzu-cross, so I just started calling him Dave because he looks like a Dave to me. Now he is Dave.

8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings?

Well, I write poems sometimes.

10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach?

I always want to sleep up my back but then I end up on my side anyway.

12: what's your favorite planet?

Mars. NASA better fucking take me there.

15: go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is!

I don't need to google this shit:

A) Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. Its volcanoes are so strong, they erupt ionized matter high enough that it ends up in space and form a cloud around Jupiter, which interacts in way I can't be bothered to explain that DOUBLE the size of Jupiter's magnetospehere.

B) The surface of Venus is the youngest in the solar system. Because Venus doesn't have tectonic plates, the pressure builds up until about once every 300-600 million years magma spills out across the whole planet and resurfaces it entirely.

16: what's your favorite pasta dish?

Carbonara

18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up.

I once "took a nap" before going out and ended up sleeping till 5am. I called my friends and they said they were still in the clu waiting for me, so I went out and partied till sunrise. The other day we met up for the first time in months and as people were arriving every single one of them brought up "Do you remember that time..."

20: what's your favorite eye color?

I don't have one.

24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets?

No, but I don't tend to keep my secrets because if everything's out in the open, people can't harm me with them.

25: what's the weirdest place you've ever broken into?

An old mental asylum. Creepy shit.

29: what's something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing?

I have this friend who talks with her hands, and whenever she says "me" she taps herself twice on the chest, and it's the most adorable thing in the world.

31: what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks.

It confuses me why people get so disturbed when I wear odd socks, like the fucking world is ending.

33: what's your fave pastry?

I don't like pastry. It's too dry.

48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today?

I've genuinely always been afraid that the system will hold me back.

50: what's an odd thing you collect?

Typewriters and, according to some people, knives. I don't really collect knives though. I just started with a few to serve different uses, and people got the idea into their heads that I like knives generally so kept buying me them.

55: what's the most dramatic thing you've ever done to prove a point?

The outcome is more dramatic than the act. When I was a kid, we were playing tag and a kid tripped as I was tagging him. He cried, and the teacher came over and told me I wasn't allowed to play anymore, and I told her "I didn't push him though -- I just tapped him, like THIS," and tagged her. She claimed I hit her and got me expelled from school. I remember this because my parents punished me by not letting me watch "The Fellowship of the Ring" in the cinema.

56: what are some things you find endearing in people?

I like people who are better people than me. I like to surround myself with people who make me want to be a nicer person.

57: go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics?

I genuinely don't like "Bohemian Rhapsody."

60: do you like poetry? what are some of your faves?

Robert Frost and Edgar Allen Poe. Poe is a fucking boss because he literally wrote an essay on how to write the perfect poem, and then to demonstrate his point, he wrote "The Raven." If that isn't the best damn poem ever written then your opinion ain't worth nothin'.

61: what's the stupidest gift you've ever given? the stupidest one you've ever received?

I gifted someone a light fitting as a joke because, in Germany, apartments are rented without light fittings, kitchen appliances and worktops and, sometimes, even toilets, something inconceivable in any other country in the world. The receiver was German, and didn't appreciate the irony.

I was recently given a Jayne Hat. I didn't intend to actually wear it but then I lost my actual hat so now I do.

62: do you drink juice in the morning? which kind?

63: are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be?

Not exactly the question asked but my taste in books and music is a higher standard than I think anyone I've ever met. I like a total of about 5 bands at a push. As a kid growing up I hated the very idea of music because the lyrics in pop music are so fucking dumb. It wasn't until I discovered rock at 15 that I finally realised music can be good.

67: how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel?

I'm English and I live in Germany. I've never known anything different. I remember when I was a kid I used to draw the skies either white or grey as clouds, and the teacher would tell me off because "the sky is blue," which it never actually is here.

69: what are your favorite board games?

A little knows game called Quantum which is pure tactical amazingness, and Boss Monster.

71: what's your favorite kind of tea?

Earl Grey. Incidentally, I grew up in the town where it's made.

72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you'll forget it?

Yeah. I forget to read my notes though.

75: tell us about your pets!

Oliver is my cat and he is my best friend. I'm serious.

78: are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub?

Ha! So, I actually hate the minions, which has become such a running gag that I have a minion poster on my door, minion underwear, and a minion onesie.

82: are/were you good in school?

I was good AT school, but I wasn't well-behaved.

84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones?

Not against the idea but I don't care about anything enough to get it drilled into my skin.

89: are you close to your parents?

I am not close to my parents.

92: are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch?

100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why?

I don't want to revisit the past and I have no hope for the future. That being said, it would be great to skip the next five years of conservative rule in Britain, but I just don't think it's going to get any better anyway. I think it's all downhill from here, the whole world over, the social progress we've made this past century all being rolled back.

captainjackjohnson:

Terry Pratchett and I are best buddies. All your arguments are invalid.

Still not entirely okay with the fact that this brilliant fellow is no longer with us.

derpassmuthafucka

Douglas Adams on leaving the planet

Douglas Adams is the only god I need. Please, NASA, send me away.

Empty Poems

I found a few short rhymes on my laptop. Here they are. They’re quite old. I make no claim as to their quality.

Moth

Somewhere in this room, a tiny creature hides.

It fluttered in on furry wings and settled down inside.

I have no will to find it, unless it bothers me again

But I can hear it flapping; intermittent; now and then.

Write This on My Headstone

On my death the sun will not stand frozen in the air;

The wind will not hold still its breath; the rain won’t even care;

Seven billion prayers will not be spoken for my soul;

And all I’ll know is darkness, cold as winter, black as coal.

The sun will rise and set and yet my darkness will not end.

Distance

She’s mine and I am hers,

And every time that we traverse

The land to touch each other’s skin

And sin is well worth waiting for.

Synesthesia

Silently, she sits, absorbed by colours

That to me are duller; we that cannot see

Them flit and flutter endlessly across

The pages; utterly outrageous, in the fact

That I cannot know how her aurora

That she sees can ever bore her. Melodies

Are fashioned in kaleidoscopic patterns,

But if it happened that I had indeed

Been born able to see the sounds around,

Then surely I’d be found to tire of it.

Gleaming

Our lives are broken,

Fractured stretches between which sweet words are spoken in beautiful moments.

Life is pieced together shattered dreams,

Between which brief glimpses of beauty can be gleaned, trapped in the seam

Like a pattern in the shattering glass, gone in an instant.

And yet the memory lasts. We piece together a picture mosaic of our past,

Distant, beautiful memories tucked between shards of reverie; gleaming.

We build the image up from bottom up and build our vision

At the rhythm of a rhyme. We are defined

By how we feel about the moments reflected in the glass.

Nothing more is real. All else will pass. This will last.

Relativity – An Ode To The Stars

I wish that there were no more stars,

That Mars and Venus, Martian lands,

The space between us, spans of cold and empty

Seas departed from the scope of our reality.

For, knowing these possibilities are out there,

Knowing that the space between, without air,

Is vaster than the universe itself, with all its wealth

Of matter scattered in between, and seeing

All these wondrous things above

Which, compared to other things, I love,

All spread so vastly out of reach

Of not only us, but of each other,

Leaves me longing to beseech

The universe to bring them hither.

These brothers of the stars,

These lights and planets that, so far apart,

We group together – the sky, we call them –

Never in my life will be attained.

We train men to read them;

Like beads, we create patterns in them;

Gather from them an understanding

Of the world, and a commanding sense

Unfurling, coming free, that we will

Some day soon be standing on foreign soils;

Not these land, but those to which our fingers point,

Our hands be raised and gods be praised:

Those alien earths that in the sky have lingered,

Points of light that our feet, hindered

By the space between, will never meet.

To know that these things cannot be near,

It makes me see that these things here,

Within our reach, upon this earth, are beautiful,

And filled with mirth. And I can touch them

Place my hands upon them; feel them; love them.

What You’ll Find Here

I started this blog for a little fun. Boy, was I in for a ride. Lemme give you a rundown:

When I first started, I just used to make funny observations about my day. But I’m a writer. I got to writing longer things. Those things got political fairly quickly.

I started my political life as an authoritarian intellectual elitist. I’d read far too much Plato. I believed, like so many others, that if we just got the RIGHT people in power, everything would work out fine. Meritocratic technocratic shit. Of course it would...

I came to realise that all power is illegitimate. Anyone exercising power over someone else is not in the moral right. I came to be what can be most closely described as a “moral anarchist”.

I still am.

It wasn’t long, though, before I came into contact with the social justice types on this site. The problem I had with them was simple: their answer to the problem of power is to be the ones with the power, and to use that power to right the alleged wrongs they perceive. They want to fix the broken system using that system. They do not confront the right; they only divide the left. What I blame on the powerful, they blame on the patriarchy.

Eventually, I stopped blogging. I got to a point where I had philosophised myself into a corner. There was nowhere else to go from here. I now knew what I believed, and I could no longer refute my own logic on the matter. And there would be no convincing the authoritarian-feminist, the anarcho-capitalists, the communists, so there was no need to write further.

That was four years ago. In that time, the Left has collapsed under the weight of all the bullshit. So let’s have some fun...

Wage Gap and Male Suicide

Surely if we just fight to remove the societal pressure on men to be successful, this will fix both the wage gap and the disproportionate male suicide rate.

#feminism

myboyfriendpetebuttigieg

Maybe I’m being reactionary, but I kinda hate anyone who takes some pretentious “lol sports ball” attitude about sports, because look I get that in high school gym you felt like being bad at sports made you feel inadequate, so you created a superiority complex over you liking books or anime more than sports or something, but organized sports are so important for giving black and latino kids in low income areas something positive to do with their time, something inexpensive and healthy, something that’ll keep them off the streets and give them to a dream to strive for, man. So literally piss off if you think you’re better than people who play/like sports.

arcadiasilver-blog

I say “lol sports ball” because I’m a bitter former art student that gets mad when arts and music programs - which are just as valid ways for low income and PoC kids to stay off the street - get defunded and removed because we worship sports in this country.

myboyfriendpetebuttigieg

Arts programs don’t get defunded because of sports. That’s not how school funding works. When all extracurriculars lose funding across the board. Sports don’t seem as dire though because they fundraise constantly. From booster activities to concession sales to renting out their facilities to hosting clinics and minicamps, sports programs raise their own money. This myth that schools just can magically afford to dump money on sports programs because “WE JUST LOVE SPORTS SO MUCH WE CANT RESIST” is ridiculous.

Also, how much money do you need to raise to kick a fucking ball around?

Sexism Against Men

Feminists have for years now argued that men and white people cannot be subject to sexism and racism because both of these things can only exist where power and privilege are being abused. The argument goes that although people of color and non-males can have prejudices and discriminate against both each other and against white men, this does not constitute sexism or racism and this distinction is significant in somehow making the speaker less of an asshole. Interestingly, the purpose of this argument is not introduce a concept for the purposes of logical argument, because engaging with the argument in any reasoned way serves the feminist purpose by derailing the conversation and framing in feminist terms.

Words exist to contextualize and express ideas, and so the important thing is not the definition of a word, but the meaning the person criticizing feminism puts behind it. By redefining the word used to criticize feminism (racist/sexist), feminists are trying to distract from what the criticism implies about them. When someone calls a feminist “sexist against men” or accuses them of “reverse racism,” arguments about what is and isn’t racism or sexism purposefully and maliciously distract from the fact that the feminist in question judges people based on biological traits over which they have no control, which regardless of how you define such judgment, makes them an awful and disgusting human being.

Put simply, anyone who discriminates against white people and men and uses this argument to justify it is not an advocate of social justice. They are a bully, hiding behind a mask of innocence and hijacking a social movement to enable them to indulge their sick, sadistic desire to insult and upset other people. The fact that they do this in the false name of tolerance and social justice is just sick.

#feminism

yourdailydoseofcommonsense

I want to know what you think about genderfluid, stargender, binary/non-binary (i honestly don't know wtf this means), and all those gender-related things. Btw, your blog is pure gold

Genderfluid seems insulting to trans people who experience genuine dysphoria and want to transition or are transitioning. If you feel like looking like a boy one day and a girl the next, without genuine biological dysphoria, awesome, but don’t pretend to be trans. It’s pathetic and makes a trans person’s struggles into a fashion accessory.

I’m not entirely sure what stargender is so I’d be very, very entertained if someone could explain it.

Non-binary is, to my knowledge, just means androgynous. Not sure where dysphoria fits in with that either, unless they feel they should have both/neither biological genders. Just seems like another term people need to try to understand themselves.

Tumblr often believes gender is a social construct maliciously formed. Which is bs. Biological genders aren’t there to harm - they’re scientific fact, formed over the evolution of the human race, and classifying them is important in terms of health and medical care. I think the word gender has been misused, when really what they’re talking about is complex ideas attached to their identity and sense of self.

That’s why the ~sparklemagicalgender~ stuff is bs and trans is an actual thing, wanting to be the opposite gender to what you were born with - opposite, because gender is literally whether you’re male or female, that’s just how the physical, biological human body developed. It’s mind-blowingly ridiculous to pretend otherwise and - in my experience, happy to be proven wrong - the only people doing so are people who aren’t professionally involved in science or the medical field in any credible way.

I think stargender is a made up gender that is somewhat related to the stars. Probably not the exact thing you’re looking for, but here’s the example: http://yourdailydoseofcommonsense.tumblr.com/post/123785463181/badsjw-this-is-going-too-far

I literally thought this site could get no worse, what a terrible mistake I made

Gender is not about whether you are male of female. The concept of gender was specifically invented to conceptualize the idea of behaviors which either conform to or deviate from social expectation of sex-specific behavior. Sex is a biological fact but gender is a social construct and does not have to reflect a binary.

Says who? (Genuine question I want to know more about the distinction and where it’s coming from.)

The origin of the word gender:

“late Middle English: from Old French gendre (modern genre ), based on Latin genus‘birth, family, nation’. The earliest meanings were ‘kind, sort, genus’ and ‘type or class of noun, etc.’ (which was also a sense of Latin genus ).”

In the Oxford English Dictionary, gender is defined as:

a. gen. Males or females viewed as a group; = sex n.1 1. Also: the property or fact of belonging to one of these groups. Originally extended from the grammatical use at sense 1 (sometimes humorously), as also in Anglo-Norman and Old French. In the 20th cent., as sex came increasingly to mean sexual intercourse (see >sex n.1 4b), gender began to replace it (in early use euphemistically) as the usual word for the biological grouping of males and females. It is now often merged with or coloured by sense 3b.

b. Psychol. and Sociol. (orig. U.S.). The state of being male or female as expressed by social or cultural distinctions and differences, rather than biological ones; the collective attributes or traits associated with a particular sex, or determined as a result of one’s sex. Also: a (male or female) group characterized in this way.

So it does reflect that the second meaning can mean due to social or cultural distinctions, but it still means male or female. The “concept of gender” in terms of the actual word was definitely not created with the purpose you suggest, because it only came to replace the word “sex” in the 20th C due to that word also meaning intercourse. Gender comes from literally just a word meaning a class of things, it wasn’t “invented” because of “social expectation”.

The sexual meaning was adapted from the linguistic meaning, not the other way around. Sexologist John Money was the first person to use “gender” in the way. Before then it’s use was exlusively linguistic. Wikipedia is your friend.

Are you saying the OED is wrong? I’m honestly not sure what you’re trying to say other than “lol wikipedia” which is kind of a cop out and not the best of sources.

It says the sexual meaning of the word “sex” was adapted from the gender meaning of the word. The word “gender” comes from the Latin “genus” which means birth, family, type, class. John Money did not invent Latin.

I’m not sure what you’re implying. Just because tumblr feminists lie and redefine words doesn’t mean you have to be wrong too just to defy them.

I genuinely have like, no idea what you’re saying by this point, sorry. I’m not implying anything at all. I was replying to your points….

I'm saying that just because tumblr feminists are wrong doesn't mean you have to take up the complete opposite opinion to oppose their stupidity. They can be wrong and you can be right even if what's right shares a few points with the half-truths they're spouting. Just because they say gender can be anything doesn't mean you have to say "No, gender has to be one of these two things." Because saying that makes you factually wrong; that is the definition of sex, not gender. So you establish that they're wrong and then you go look up what gender actually is according the official psychological definition. Fortunately feminists don't seem to have gotten their grubby little antiscientific hands on the wikipedia article on "gender" yet so it gives a pretty accurate history of the term's developments.

#feminism

yourdailydoseofcommonsense

I want to know what you think about genderfluid, stargender, binary/non-binary (i honestly don't know wtf this means), and all those gender-related things. Btw, your blog is pure gold

Genderfluid seems insulting to trans people who experience genuine dysphoria and want to transition or are transitioning. If you feel like looking like a boy one day and a girl the next, without genuine biological dysphoria, awesome, but don’t pretend to be trans. It’s pathetic and makes a trans person’s struggles into a fashion accessory.

I’m not entirely sure what stargender is so I’d be very, very entertained if someone could explain it.

Non-binary is, to my knowledge, just means androgynous. Not sure where dysphoria fits in with that either, unless they feel they should have both/neither biological genders. Just seems like another term people need to try to understand themselves.

Tumblr often believes gender is a social construct maliciously formed. Which is bs. Biological genders aren’t there to harm - they’re scientific fact, formed over the evolution of the human race, and classifying them is important in terms of health and medical care. I think the word gender has been misused, when really what they’re talking about is complex ideas attached to their identity and sense of self.

That’s why the ~sparklemagicalgender~ stuff is bs and trans is an actual thing, wanting to be the opposite gender to what you were born with - opposite, because gender is literally whether you’re male or female, that’s just how the physical, biological human body developed. It’s mind-blowingly ridiculous to pretend otherwise and - in my experience, happy to be proven wrong - the only people doing so are people who aren’t professionally involved in science or the medical field in any credible way.

I think stargender is a made up gender that is somewhat related to the stars. Probably not the exact thing you’re looking for, but here’s the example: http://yourdailydoseofcommonsense.tumblr.com/post/123785463181/badsjw-this-is-going-too-far

I literally thought this site could get no worse, what a terrible mistake I made

Gender is not about whether you are male of female. The concept of gender was specifically invented to conceptualize the idea of behaviors which either conform to or deviate from social expectation of sex-specific behavior. Sex is a biological fact but gender is a social construct and does not have to reflect a binary.

Says who? (Genuine question I want to know more about the distinction and where it’s coming from.)

The origin of the word gender:

“late Middle English: from Old French gendre (modern genre ), based on Latin genus‘birth, family, nation’. The earliest meanings were ‘kind, sort, genus’ and ‘type or class of noun, etc.’ (which was also a sense of Latin genus ).”

In the Oxford English Dictionary, gender is defined as:

a. gen. Males or females viewed as a group; = sex n.1 1. Also: the property or fact of belonging to one of these groups. Originally extended from the grammatical use at sense 1 (sometimes humorously), as also in Anglo-Norman and Old French. In the 20th cent., as sex came increasingly to mean sexual intercourse (see >sex n.1 4b), gender began to replace it (in early use euphemistically) as the usual word for the biological grouping of males and females. It is now often merged with or coloured by sense 3b.

b. Psychol. and Sociol. (orig. U.S.). The state of being male or female as expressed by social or cultural distinctions and differences, rather than biological ones; the collective attributes or traits associated with a particular sex, or determined as a result of one’s sex. Also: a (male or female) group characterized in this way.

So it does reflect that the second meaning can mean due to social or cultural distinctions, but it still means male or female. The “concept of gender” in terms of the actual word was definitely not created with the purpose you suggest, because it only came to replace the word “sex” in the 20th C due to that word also meaning intercourse. Gender comes from literally just a word meaning a class of things, it wasn’t “invented” because of “social expectation”.

The sexual meaning was adapted from the linguistic meaning, not the other way around. Sexologist John Money was the first person to use “gender” in the way. Before then it’s use was exlusively linguistic. Wikipedia is your friend.

Are you saying the OED is wrong? I’m honestly not sure what you’re trying to say other than “lol wikipedia” which is kind of a cop out and not the best of sources.

It says the sexual meaning of the word “sex” was adapted from the gender meaning of the word. The word “gender” comes from the Latin “genus” which means birth, family, type, class. John Money did not invent Latin.