If I am to be swallowed by Fate, then I must have fought well.

[convulsive-madness]

Gonna try and commit to a change in mindset. I'll stick to being completely honest in my feelings about things, with no trolling whatsoever. I will also not be deleting any previous bits of my jackassery, because that's just running from it. We'll see how well being honest with my feelings actually works, or will it just be a "Yea, I support depressed people, but only if their depressed in a way that I can safely ignore or romanticize" and "I do accept people who are trying to be better, unless they've personally gone against me in the past." It probably won't work, but hey! If it doesn't, I'll at least now have evidence to point to whenever someone asks me why I am the way I am. And if it does work, then that's positive too, I guess!

[convulsive-madness]

oh lookit me go, starting down the path of destroying another bath of potential friendships due to being completely incapable of not being a cynical contrarian shithead.

Not only am I a dumb piece of shit that the world would be better off without, I also can't fucking learn from my mistakes!

every single "you know you an still do good even if it's only a little bit" blowing sunshine up my ass post is getting a good "go fuck yourself" from now on.

Oh, and the guy who's trolling my blog because I dared disagree with you and wants to find reasons why I'm a terrible person so nobody should listen to me: Know that I see you. I don't know what else to add, since I know I'm a piece of shit, so you're instinct was right, but don't do this shit. It makes actually decent people afraid to admit their problems because shitheads like you want to win an argument on the internet.

[jungwildeandfree]

and while we’re at it, fuck this idea that ONE ACCOUNT has to belong uniquely to ONE PERSON. This is the same thing these silicon valley fucks want; their vision of the future where everyone has a unique biometric ID code implanted in their body is the ultimate extension of Netflix’s “no password sharing” policy. You want to use your friend’s car? Sorry, you can’t, you need to be an authorized user. Your mother wants to let you look something up on her OED account? Too bad! That’s only for her! The concept of perfect market efficiency gives them greedy little money bag eyes.

If I pay money to have a newspaper sent to my house, they don’t charge me extra when I show it to my dad. This password sharing thing isn’t just a Netflix problem; don’t be surprised if it shows up elsewhere in other forms. Stamp this idea out now or we’ll be stuck with it.

[jungwildeandfree]

This is by far the most popular post I have and I have to say: good, I’m right. Password sharing and ID verification are going to kill the internet. not oooh in 50 years. in like 5 more.

[convulsive-madness]

"Password sharing and ID verification are going to kill the internet."

you say that like it's a bad thing.

[prismatic-bell]

Sitting outside the library with Chex mix and pigeons like the world's most bargain-bin Disney princess and having thoughts.

There are too many feral pigeons and not enough domestic demand to get them off the streets. They're wonderful birds, but right now it's a bad situation for both us and the pigeons.

Why, given that pigeons are edible, have we decided the best way to handle large pigeon populations is poison and anti-bird spikes, instead of trap/euthanize/provide to food banks? Like yes, many pigeons have diseases from living on the street, but there's antibiotics for that. The money spent on basic antibiotics and deworming would be more than offset by savings in the infrastructure budget from, you know, not having to fix as much pigeon damage. Pigeons that are simply too sick to rehabilitate would, at least, be quickly euthanized and out of their misery instead of dragging themselves around starving for weeks. And both trapping and preparing them for distribution (plucking, cleaning, etc.) could be a source of income and job training for folks who are struggling.

(Also crafters would 100% buy the feathers. Pigeons are feral, not wild. They're not covered by the wildlife act I can't think of the name of right now. That's more money to offset the costs of the program.)

Am I the only person who's now wondering why we don't do this? It would reduce and control bird population, provide food, protect infrastructure, save money, and create some jobs. And it might get people appreciating pigeons again, too, which would be good for pigeons still on the streets, and also populations of things that eat pigeons (cats, coyotes, wolves and yes you can find those in some cities) because, you know. Not eating poisoned and slowly dying pigeons.

[convulsive-madness]

they're icky, that's why

[phaeton-flier]

"all works, on some level, reflect the political beliefs of the author and their environment" is true, and important to keep in mind if you want to analyze works.

It does, however, make it useless to describe a work as "political"; when we use that term to describe e.g. a movie, we want to say it is purposefully or particularly advancing a political argument.

Similarly, "all objects have electrons" is also true, and important for understanding physics. Yet if you say "therefore all objects are 'electrical'" you are not helping me to buy a leafblower

[phaeton-flier]

Following up on this: the correct answer to some dipshit complaining about a new movie being "too political" because it has a black woman or a trans man isn't "actually, all movies are political", it's "lol you're a Dipshit"

[wiseguynephile]

it would be useless to describe works as "political" if people weren't constantly trying to claim the opposite of your first paragraph up there; you can't throw a cat without someone pointing to this work or that work and saying there's "no politics in it" or that it's "apolitical."

and they don't just mean that it's not purposefully advancing some specific political argument; they genuinely believe that it's just some kind of perfectly neutral unmarked story which lies outside of a well-defined and eternally-unchanging set of divisive topics which constitute "politics."

if you're just going around pointing to random movies and saying that they're political, then yes, that's useless. but i don't think anyone is doing that? they only bring it up when someone else claims that a work isn't political, by which they mean whatever positions the work implies or normalizes are natural and normal and therefore don't count as politics. that's the only context where people whip out the "everything is political," or it should be.

[phaeton-flier]

However irritating I find "guy who complains about how politics (women, pronouns, vague platitudes for liberalism) are in everything now", I think he is using the term "politics" in a more useful way than the person who says that everything is political, because as noted above that makes it hard to describe the difference between, e.g., The Platform, a work which is making specific arguments about politics and political action, versus Superhero Movie, a film which certainly reflects a lot of the social and political environment of the time (Here's our hero spying on his neighbor change. Isn't that wacky and sympathetic?) but which is fairly clearly not making the same sort of thing.

There are no works which stand outside society and culture, an island away from political examination, and that's good to keep in mind! But sometimes you have to say that, the whole concept.

[what-even-is-thiss]

if someone were to start playing the fallout games is there an order you'd recommend or just go wild?

If good gunplay and/or good graphics is all that’s important to you, start with fallout 4. If you want a roleplaying game ass roleplaying game, start with New Vegas. If you’re into more cartoonish post apocalyptic nonsense, start with Fallout 3. They’re all fun.

Also if location and/or main story is important to you, fallout 3 is in the DC area and follows a vault dweller trying to find their runaway dad and has to do with a project purifying the local water supply, New Vegas is in the Las Vegas area and follows a courier trying to find the man who intercepted their package and tried to kill them and deals with a war over the Hoover dam, and Fallout 4 is in the Boston area and follows a prewar suburbanite who was frozen for 200 years and is trying to find their kidnapped son and deals with a secret organization that’s been kidnapping people and replacing them with synthetic humans.

I can’t say much about fallout 1 and 2 because they’re turn based 90s computer games that are kinda difficult to get the hang of. They both take place generally in Southern California and Nevada though. Reno, Los Angeles, Bakersfield, etc.

They’re all good in their own way. I’d say just start with whichever one has the most interesting concept to you.

[prismatic-bell]

Also if you like games like The Sims, you want FO4.

You also want 795472648472 mods, because they really halfassed settlement-building, but you will have fun.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I also find it to be fun without mods so don’t let this person intimidate you if you’re new to modding.

[prismatic-bell]

Yeah, I started with zero mods. The problem is eventually you start going "ooooooh!!! 4K garlic!" and you want everything.

[convulsive-madness]

At the very least, I always try to make my first play-through without mods.

I like to see what the people who made the game is good enough to sell is. The fun part is, like 95% of the time, it is!

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

[what-even-is-thiss]

I just had an argument with someone who was like “why would we settle for food stamps when we could have universal basic income?”

And it’s just like. People need food right now you know.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Hippie church moms donating quinoa chips to my local food bank have done more for me materially than any internet idealist ever has.

[what-even-is-thiss]

People get pissed at me for being a pragmatist in my political ideals but I’ve been in the position where I was out of food right now.

And who helped me with that? Not people calling for some nebulous revolution. Not people telling me that the system was useless. Not people preaching at me to grow my own food. It was a church food bank partially funded by the state of Texas that some southern hippies donated a bunch of Whole Foods nonsense to.

And you know what? I’m sick and tired of defeatism. What can we get done right now, huh? Are you gonna accept something a bit better to help people right now or are you waiting for your perfect utopia to come to you?

Yeah, UBI is better than the quinoa chips. Sure. But right now the quinoa chips are stopping people from going hungry and if all we can do is get the food bank quinoa chips to more people, then I say so be it. That’s something. I’ll almost always take baby steps over nothing.

[inlowearthorbit]

Like quite frankly the repeated insistence that it is normal and forgivable dohoho you youthful scamps behavior for young men in the military to get nazi tattoos is actually a deeply, profoundly offensive insult to the countless numbers of veterans and active duty military personnel who, like, AREN'T hateful nazi scum and/or brainless shameless idiots and it it's infuriating to see this lie repeated again and again and again

[penrosesun]

Pete Buttigieg served for almost twice as long as Platner did, and he has zero Nazi tattoos. Tammy Duckworth has a Purple Heart, and no Nazi tattoos, either. Mark Kelly, Gary Peters, Mike Thompson – any of them have a Nazi tattoo? Do you think Kaiali'i Kahele’s hiding one? Oh, you meant just veterans from the Marines? Jake Auchincloss, Conor Lamb, Seth Moulton – Nazi tattoos on all of them, right? No? Oh, you meant just Marine Sargents specifically? Huh, interesting, does Richard Blumenthal have a Nazi tattoo? Jared Golden only made Corporal, and as far as I know he doesn’t have one, either.

FFS, from the way people talk about Platner, you’d think no other Democratic candidate had ever served.

[frogeyedape]

not the best dem candidate > the republican option

Harris v Trump anyone? how are you enjoying this presidency? waiting for the perfect option doesn't help

if you could do it better? run for election! the only way we get better candidates is if people stand up and throw their name in the hat

tldr: while recognizing the shortcomings and room for improvement in political candidates is worthwhile, it is NOT worth throwing an election away. so he's not perfect? are you running? stop discouraging blue votes

[inlowearthorbit]

"shortcomings" "room for improvement"

Is that what we're calling it now?

You can bend over for the fascists if you want but I sure as fuck am not going to. This man has shown me NOTHING that suggests he's actually going to do anything better for us.

[inlowearthorbit]

It is honestly DEEPLY fucking concerning to me what you people will excuse if a mediocre white man will do the BARE MINIMUM of saying the correct buzzwords. You realize this is a primary, right? HE'S RUNNING AGAINST OTHER DEMOCRATS RIGHT NOW. You can still vote blue and not give your vote to a FUCKING NAZI

[arandomshotinthedark]

Right? The primary hasn't concluded yet!

No one is talking about perfect opinions! We're talking about not having a fucking nazi running as a Dem winning!

What you really think he's going to do all the shit he says? Bah! He's going to vote almost exactly like Collins!

[prismatic-bell]

My grandfather didn't fight Nazis for all you fuckers to vote for one.

[convulsive-madness]

both sides are the same🤗

[cerastes]

I don’t think we ought to normalize or justify bullying as a means to keep people from being annoying — a sentiment that in and of itself could make for a whole article’s worth of conversation — but I do think we should make a habit of politely but directly telling people “hey I didn’t like that”, “that wasn’t funny”, “you are mistaken”, and the like if it’s called for, and more importantly, you should be able to take a “that wasn’t funny” for instance without taking it personally, because protecting a polite harmony where no one can criticize each other, not even politely, is also really, really bad.

[saywhat-politics]

[nitpickspot]

Soon enough we will get to roll up our sleeves and get to work fixing this garbage, and maybe 1% of the stupid assholes will have learned something

[convulsive-madness]

Well, we'll fix maybe 20% of it, and then people will be pissed that we haven't fixed all of it and refuse to vote again.

[valigarmander]

[prismatic-bell]

And then his work was destroyed by the Nazis because he was Jewish.

Queer rights and our understanding of human sexuality was set back by eighty years because of antisemitism.

[just-the-salt]

Didn't think that I'd have to post this exact comparison again, didn't even think I'd have to post it once, and yet I stand disappointed again.

On the left: a sign in German on a street in Bavaria, reading: "Jews are unwanted here." Photo taken by an American in 1937.

On the right: a message from a hotel in Bavaria, Zum Hirschen, sent to Israelis who tried to book a stay, reading: "Sorry, there are no Jews allowed in our hotel." June 2026.

Again, the incident has been "handled": Booking.com took the hotel off its platform and the hotel itself was contacted by the Israeli consulate in Munich. The hotel at first denied sending the message, but later stated that it was indeed one of its employees that sent it. It is yet unclear if the case will lead to formal proceedings.

Let me point out that one small detail. They didn't said Israelis weren't allowed, they didn't say Zionists weren't allowed. They said Jews. Now Bavarians aren't new at the scene of antisemitism, in fact they are very experienced, but nowadays, we don't say Jews when we're being discriminatory, no, we say something else. You're not supposed to say the quiet part out loud! (For those in my comments who don't understand sarcasm, that was it.)

This joins many concerning cases across Europe and the UK (not to mention the US!) that reenact the nostalgic scenes of the 1930s and 1940s. (Again, sarcasm). I haven't yet made a post about the spa in Spain that refused a Jewish woman on entry on account of her Magen David necklace. And here Europe strikes again, in the very place the Nazi party rose to power. All those woke westerners that are so proud to chant about punching Nazis, and where are you now? Aren't you ashamed? Wouldn't even recognize one if it was saluting in your face.

[theslaybymic]

Don’t overlook paternity leave because it’s a hugely important feminist issue

Celebrating fatherhood with official paternity leave policies challenges traditional gender roles and empowers parents in the workplace. It’s one of those rare issues where men’s rights activists and feminists can find common ground with a mutually beneficial cause. It even has an impact on LGBTQ equality.

Follow @this-is-life-actually

[dailymanners]

I’ve reblogged a lot of posts today about why paid paternity leave (or just in general all parents regardless of gender being entitled to the same amount of paid parental leave) is such an important social issue, and these posts have made a lot of great points about why gender equality in parental leave is such a massively important issue for equality, such as:

- It’s important for LGBT+ parents who don’t fit the cis-hetero mold of one mother and one father.

- It’s an important feminist issue for reducing the second shift: when only one parent gets adequate parental leave, it’s only natural for a pattern to develop that the only parent who got adequate parental leave takes on the lion’s share of childcare. However, if both parents get adequate parental leave, then it’s more likely for a pattern to develop of sharing childcare duties. This is obviously massively important for reducing how much women’s careers are affected by having children.

- If the mother has post-partum health issues (anything from recovering from a C-section or other physical traumas, to post-partum depression and/or anxiety) it’s incredibly unfair to expect her partner to just go back to work immediately instead of allowing her partner to stay home and help with childcare duties. When someone is recovering from having a baby, it can be really important for their partner to stay home to help care for them and the baby.

However, one important point I haven’t seen brought up in why equal paid parental is so important for social equality is how important it is for reducing hiring discrimination.

By that I mean, when a country has *only* guaranteed maternity leave, but either no paternity leave (or really short paternity leave of a few weeks like the U.K. has), this is only going to raise the risk of hiring discrimination against women.

So if a company is choosing between two candidates for a position: one is a young woman and the other is a young man, if the country this company is in has a maternity leave policy of several months or more, but paternity leave is either just a few weeks (or completely non-existent), the company will look at the woman as riskier and less reliable to hire than the man.

So equal paid parental leave leads to more equality in the job market, because it means companies are less likely to see women as riskier and less reliable to hire. If everyone, not just women, has the same length of parental leave, everyone runs the same risk of needing to go on leave for the same amount of time.

There’s no reason not to demand that all parents regardless of gender receive equal paid parental leave. All parents and all children benefit from it.

[kosher-salt]

that's it that's the post

[short-wooloo]

I think I know what this is talking about but I am not sure

[afurioushawk]

Jordan was carved from British Mandate Palestine, just like Israel, when it became a country in 1946, but nobody in the Free Palestine movement says it should be dismantled.

[short-wooloo]

So it is (part of) what I thought it was

Is it not also true that Jordan has and has pretty much always had a VERY large population of people who are considered/considere themselves to be Palestinians? Like a decent chunk of the country’s population, in effect making Jordan a de facto Palestinian state

[kosher-salt]

You get an A+

Jordan was in fact founded to be the Palestinian state (as much as anything could be before "Palestinian" was invented as movement identity, much less discrete and exempt culture. Palestinian meant anyone hanging out in the British Mandate, usually Jews. The other present cultures included flavors like Levantine Arab.)

It's a slight oversimplification maybe, but the reality is that in the 1940's the entire issue was not framed as it is now, which makes it especially egregious when people talk about it as if it's been Israelis vs Palestians since '48. Those just weren't the 2 involved parties, it's a major fallacy.

The wild thing about Jordan is that if everyone were being honest, if there wasn't a scam being run, is that the Israeli Palestinian conflict would hardly exist. I stand by that.

[the-orion-scribe]

To give a bit of nuance, it's also more that the British gave the land to an Arab royal family (the Hashemites) to rule over. The Hashemites did once rule over a kingdom. So it's a bit like if some Imperial power decided to allocate a piece of land for a deposed German duke family (there's many from the former Holy Roman Empire) to rule

[kosher-salt]

Yep. But if you say "hey y'all were literally installed by a colonial power" it doesn't go over well from what I hear

[kosher-salt]

@illegitimatetenenbaum I'm dragging you out of the tags because this elephant should be addressed, too

Like people want to pretend Israel has not been trying to shake these territories off for decades. They never wanted to exert control in the first place because they never wanted to be responsible for a population that doesn't seek Israeli citizenship. You know, because they aren't a colonial power. And Jordan won't take them now, under any offer (including Jordan simply annexing the West Bank.) It's established they don't want to be Israeli, and despite the free PR ignorant people do for them, the current parties in control don't want to establish a state, either. Perpetual war is probably the goal. I literally don't blame current Jordan, and concur it's not a simple answer *today.* However, peace in the region will 100% have to include their involvement.

[magnetothemagnificent]

I recently came across a post from you stating that it’s “insidious” that Pride events are often scheduled on Saturday which means you as an observant Jews can’t go. Why is your schedule more important that everyone else’s? Why do non Jews, such as myself, need to schedule things according to your schedule?

Are you a religious Christian for whom a Pride parade is considered "work" and therefore something you would not be able to attend were it scheduled on a Sunday? Do you attend Mass on Sunday that takes all day and therefore limits your free time on Sunday? No? So then why is it such a hassle for things to be scheduled on a Sunday? In fact, many workplaces still don't give off Saturday as a given, but they do give off Sunday. Wouldn't you want more people (Jewish or not) to be included?

Jews, whether you like it or not, were and are deeply foundational to the modern LGBTQ Pride and Rights movement. Magnus Hirschfeld was a Jew. Harvey Milk was a Jew. Brenda Howard, the literal "Mother of Pride" was a Jew. They may not have been Orthodox Jews or Shabbat-observant, but Jews of all levels of observance and religiosity deserve to be included. And Jewish religious institutions have been supportive of LGBTQ causes for decades. And even if Jews weren't part of and supporters of the community from the start, Jews are part of the community now and ought to be included, as should people of all ethnicities, races, religions, and nationalities.

But honestly? My views have changed since I made that post that earned it a screenshot and post onto reddit saying "look how crazy and entitled those Jews are". I think the Western LGBTQ movement's exclusion and hatred of Jews now goes far beyond scheduling things on Saturdays. That's just the surface level. Things are far more overt when Jewish interest groups are quite literally banned from Pride events, when Jews are regularly harassed and attacked both off-line and online, when the overwhelming message from the Western LGBTQ world is that an LGBTQ person who is also a Jew is a traitor to their own kind. And it gets worse and worse each year as more LGBTQ people trade in their own safety and welfare and future prospects to spend their time, energy, and money hating Jews. Not only is it disgustingly hateful, it's counterproductive. LGBTQ rights are being attacked and stripped away all around the Western world, but people care more about investing their energy into best excluding Jews, Jews who, LGBTQ or not, would be and are supportive of LGBTQ causes. It's deeply insidious.

My schedule isn't more important than anyone else's. I know that. You know that, and you know that you were reading my post in bad faith. Jews are not the only people who would benefit from important Pride events not being scheduled on Saturdays. People who still have to work on Saturdays would benefit too. And I know you read a tiny snippet of my post and blacked out, because in that post I also mentioned Pride events being scheduled on Jewish holidays (Shavuot often times falls out in June). I think if you are in a community with a large number of Jews who are contributing members, it's only basic decency to be considerate. I am annoyed at conventions that do that same thing, mind you. But "niche interest conventions" are not a broad, umbrella movement the way the Western LGBTQ movement is. A science fiction convention isn't part of the same movement as a WWII history airshow, for example, and they are often not run by the same kinds of people and they are often not even attended by the same kinds of people.

Put on your thinking cap and think for a moment as to why you have such a visceral reaction to a Jew asking to be included.

[kurganfilledwithbearbones]

i would like to remind everyone smugly using "usamerican" that you are not being woke or reclaiming anything you just don't understand how adjectives or languages work

[kurganfilledwithbearbones]

american - national of the united states of america

north american - individual living in or a national of a country located on the continent of north america

south american - individual living in or a national of a country located on the continent of south america

canadian - definitionally, especially lately, person who does not fucking want to be called an american, because "american" in both canadian and american english has the semantic weight of "national of the united states of america"

and this is not, in fact, limited to english

amerískur - icelandic adjective for american (loanword, more on the slang side, bandarískur more often used)

ameríkani - icelandic noun describing a national of the united states of america

américain - french adjective or noun describing a national of the united states of america

you cannot brute force a sea change in multiple languages simply because you personally misunderstand the difference between etymology and semantics and also assume (in, hilariously, a very american-centric way) that the billion-plus individuals must have a closer connection to the concept of continent than they do to nationality or other regional identities. a catfish is not literally a cat. it is a completely random trick of language evolution that nationals of the united states of america are not called unitans or vespuccians. calm down and stop being irritating