Crockology

Restoring the balance...

[aidashakur]

Be the reason why people still believe in good hearts, good vibes, and kind souls

[iamaine]

i've praised americans before for their sensible mental categorisation of 'lemonade', how it doesn't include sprite and how we are being very stupid for calling sprite and sprite-like things 'lemonade' when those two things should absolutely not be thought of as belonging to the same group.

for balance's sake i will now scorn the americans: 'red liquorice' is not a thing. 'oh i don't like black liquorice i only like red liquorice' is an insane statement, you're following up one thing with a complete non-sequitur that only makes sense because of a gerrymandered category boundary.

we call them strawberry laces here, or usually just whatever their brand name is. 'red liquorice' contains no liquorice and should not be thought of as belonging to the same category as liquorice, or 'black liquorice'

[writingdose]

I am once again begging people to realize that AI checker doesn’t work. it’s never worked. it’s notoriously known to have flagged human-made works as AI and AI-generated works as human-made. and by feeding it people’s works, you are feeding more works to AI, because apparently the machine itself is AI.

the only thing AI checker does is harm genuine artists and people in general too.

[collapsedsquid]

Women Who Use AI Seen As Incompetent; Men Who Use AI Seen As Pragmatic

A 2026 study found that when women and men use AI tools to create identical resumes, evaluators view the women as less competent, while cred

In the new study, Chatoo created an AI-supported resume for a marketing position and asked 1,000 adults in the U.K. to evaluate the candidate during April 2026. The evaluators received identical resumes and were told that the candidate had used AI assistance. The only difference among the resumes was the candidate’s name. Half of the evaluators saw Emily Clarke, while half saw James Clark. Despite identical resume content, the evaluators judged women candidates much more harshly for using AI assistance than men. The evaluators who attributed the AI-assisted resume to a woman were twice as likely to question the candidate’s competency. “She can’t even write a CV herself—not sure she has the skill to carry out the job,” said one of the evaluators of Emily’s resume. [...] The study also found that an evaluator’s own familiarity with AI tools did not eliminate gender bias when assessing others’ AI use. Older evaluators showed less gender bias than male Gen Z evaluators, who are more likely to use AI themselves. Among Gen Z males, 97% rated James as a “strong” candidate while only 76% rated Emily as “strong,” representing a 21 percentage point gender gap.

Men hoarding all the AI

[discoursedrome]

oh this is a fun angle. I guess the silver lining is that AI resume evaluators can be trained and tested to minimize this bias, and within five years no human will ever read a resume again in any event

[theothin]

a human cannot be made unbiased, therefore a human must never make a hiring decision

[rampagingpoet]

Prev's tags for some important context / related work:

Always good to see concern for confounding factors!

[natalieironside]

I think I was well-served in the long run by having already come to terms with being a freak and an outcast many, many years before I came out as a transsexual.

I heard all these horror stories like "You'll have a hard time finding a job and everyone will think you're a big weirdo and you'll be subject to a panopticon of social scrutiny and face violent bigotry" and I had thought Well all of that stuff is already happening to me anyways so why not, you'll hang for a sheep as well as a lamb

[natalieironside]

Feels like there's a significant intracommunity divide between those of us who were already living on the outskirts of life and those who see themselves as temporarily embarassed average citizens

[ao3commentoftheday]

For the purposes of this poll, the word "interesting" is a placeholder for whatever adjective best applies to you and your perspective. The interest could be aesthetic, sexual, psychological etc. Your choice.

which do you find more interesting?

the character

the actor who portrays the character

they're both equally interesting (in the same way)

they're both equally interesting (in different ways)

Remaining time: 1 day 23 hours

[quasi-normalcy]

I don't understand how Jared Leto keeps getting cast in movies? Like it would be one thing if he was a major box office draw, but he just seems to be a creepy rapist who has been in bomb after bomb after bomb.

[saathiray]

I think about this so much. He's box office poison AND a sexual menace AND annoying to work with. HOW IS HE GETTING WORK?

[vaspider]

I genuinely wonder if he or his agent have dirt on somebody, you know?

[rosstmcd]

This is like the diametric opposite of Keanu Reeves.

(Some of you all may be too young to remember, but before the Matrix Keanu Reeves was not a big time star. And people would occasionally ask on various internet forums, "Why does Keanu Reeves keep getting work? He's a so-so actor. By Hollywood standards he's only average looking. His name isn't big enough to draw people. Why is he getting cast in so many movies?" And the answer would always be: producers loved him. If he was in your movie he would show up every day, on time, sober, with his lines memorized, ready to work. He never caused drama with the cast or crew. He was genuinely a pleasure to work with. And so he kept getting parts.)

(And of course after the Matrix he was a big name who could sell tickets, and his acting kept getting better, and he's one of those people who grow into their looks and he's a lot more handsome now than he was in his 20s. But by all accounts he's still a pleasure to work with.)

[vaspider]

Yep! Being a professional will get you cast/hired in ways that talent won't if you suck to work with. This is known. Obviously that's not universal, but.

[viejospellejos]

Típico de belgas malinois

[ceruinus]

Good video showcasing exactly why these dogs are not suited to 99 percent of households.

They've gotten very popular recently and I suspect theyre also being dumped in shelters at a high rate

[ultramarineblues]

I can confirm they are.

Which is one of the reasons I reblogged this, I vaguely hope it might make someone somewhere reconsider their choices

[pillowspace]

There are many people who don’t share this sentiment, but I have an appreciation for when a fanfic is so separated from canon that it could’ve easily been its own original novel, and yet the author was only ever going to put that much energy into it if their favourite characters got to be there

[pillowspace]

I think there’s a difference between “the author stripped the media of everything it had to replace it with something easy” and “the author thought up a concept they really really like and are bestowing it upon the character like a medal”

[the-tired-tenor]

So uh….some dude apparently recreated Adobe Photoshop feature-for-feature, for FREE, and it runs in your browser.

Anyway, fuck Adobe, and enjoy!

[adv3nturelust]

Give credit to the 30-year-old who worked on this for free and offers this service for free!

[marsh-mallow-adopts]

WHAT?!

[triona-tribblescore]

I study graphic design and my tutor recommended and used this in his classes at art college last year, it’s so good it has SO many features for free, I really recommend it, even if you’re just trying to learn the basics of PS, such a wonderful thing <3

[naamahdarling]

I use this and it’s fucken great. No bullshit. Really works. Sometimes the world is kind.

[kominfyrirkattarnef]

Have you guys noticed how much the internet/technology just does not listen to you anymore? I click “don’t show this artist” on Spotify and I get recommended a music video by them on the front page. I click “skip this update” on a pop up every time I open a file organization app and it’s right back there every time. O click unsubscribe on a newsletter and it keeps showing up in my inbox!! I click “delete my account” and the next time I open the website they suggest I “reactivate”.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

Power is a funny thing.

[nonbinary-wrath-month]

I have an absolutist stance on the phrase "man up". If you tell someone to "man up", I discard your opinion. If you are a self-proclaimed feminist and you tell someone to "man up", you should know better, and therefore I consider your personal credibility suspect. And if you say "man up" because you heard a transmasculine person say anything along the lines of "I dislike the way others treat me for being transmasc", then every transmasc person you know is justified in verbally ripping you to shreds. Not to put too fine a point on it, but there is no good reason to use this phrase in earnest, and I will not pretend that it doesn't make my blood boil. Put the toxic masculinity down. I'm no longer asking.

[afloweroutofstone]

Google quietly added generative AI capabilities to Google Earth, allowing anyone to generate false images on top of real satellite imagery. It seems pretty rudimentary, but the potential for disinformation is sky-high.

Anyway, did y'all hear that they nuked the White House?

[afloweroutofstone]

Within the first few hours of its discovery, people on Twitter used this tool to generate an Epstein Island attraction at Disneyland, a mega-prison within Google’s headquarters, and a sequel to 9/11.

Google has already announced that they will be “rolling back” this feature because of screenshots like these:

The fact that they want to bring it back with “guardrails” is ridiculous. Screenshots like these are not the work of some malign actors, they’re instant proof that your idea is terrible on its face

[kvetches]

i'm actually so serious when i say it's irresponsible at this point in time to portray choking as "light kink" and "harmless fun". i need all teenagers to know how dangerous choking is because everything around them pretends it's the same as any kink and god knows i'm not crazy about "any kink" but choking is not just demeaning or even emotionally or physically harmful it is an immediate threat to a person's life and there's no way of knowing when you've gone too far and have caused irreparable damage!!!

[charlesoberonn]

America has a weird relationship with cults where they’re terrified of small cults (or organizations they think are cults) but completely normalized massive cults that hurt many more people (eg: LDS Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Amish, Scientology, most Megachurches)

[charlesoberonn]

To anybody asking if the Amish are a cult, the answer is yes, very much so.

They’re a high control group that isolate you from society. The cult decides how you dress, how you behave, who you marry and how. They control what you know, blocking all information from the outside world. They control how you feel and what you’re allowed to think with threats of both social and supernatural harm. They’re a cult.

[charlesoberonn]

The best method to determine if a group is a cult, in my opinion, is Steven Hassan’s (cult expert and former cult member himself) BITE model.

BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.

The more points a group “scores” on the model, the more of a cult it is.

I think this model is the best one for several reasons:

It’s more nuanced than “cult” or “not cult” and doesn’t make false equivalences between groups

It’s versatile, applying to groups big and small, and cults of all kinds, religious, political, financial, etc.

It focuses on what’s important, which is what the cult does to its members, and those members’ experiences, and not on irrelevant details like how uncommon their doctrines are or whether they have a charismatic leader

[charlesoberonn]

This is a great example of Thought Control used by cults whenever they’re confronted with criticism.

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

#you might notice that there are a lot of similarities between cult techniques and those of abusive partners#and that is an important thing to be aware of

yah that goes in the post

[charlesoberonn]

The creator of the BITE Model considers abusive relationships to be two-person cults.

[forgotn1]

It’s important to note that almost every sect of evangelical christianity in the US today fails the BITE Model.

[alp-crispy]

This was the post that lead to breaking my JW mindset. Been a while since I seen it.

[charlesoberonn]

I’m glad I could help in your deconstruction, if only a little bit. I wish you all the luck in your journey moving forward.

[tuulikki]

And to highlight a key aspect of the “two-person cult” dynamic:

Not all high-control groups are religious. Secular cults exist.

I’d strongly recommend reading this brief bio of Janja Lalich. She’s a deprogramming therapist, but she’s also a cult survivor from a political cult.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

high control groups can also form in friend groups and online! any social group can theoretically be a high control enviroment that’s abusive. any group can be a cult if someone uses that group to control and abuse others.

[what-even-is-thiss]

You're religious? You're like so chill and not homophobic and believe sex workers deserve human rights

Considering that there are literally billions of religious people on the planet yes, some of us are progressives. Jesus says to share what you have and be kind to your neighbors so idk why I wouldn’t support human rights.

[what-even-is-thiss]

The thing about chill religious people is that we are chill and kinda quiet so unfortunately the unchill loud kinds get all of the airtime.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I’m not gonna try to convert you to my way of thinking but I will explain that spirituality is a fundamental part of the human experience and the universe is never going to be fully explained. On top of that community and culture are often connected very closely to religion.

Choosing to admit that you are a being of spirituality and you will never fully understand everything about how the universe works and connecting with a community and culture that fills those needs for you is a perfectly rational decision to make.

Yes I literally believe in the existance of a singular God. Yes I also fully believe in science. This is not a contradiction. I’ll never know for sure if I’m right about how the universe works but I don’t care. What I get out of my faith is incredibly important to me whether I’m correct or not.

I also don’t really care if you agree with me or not. I know what I’m about and I’m not one to try and convert people but I’m also not interested in hiding such a fundamental part of who I am. My queerness, my love for modern science, my love for life, are all linked deeply to my faith and I have no interest in trying to hide that even if I am a bit quiet with it at times.

[o-craven-canto]

Alternate timeline in which all Greek and Latin roots are swapped:

catastrophe -> contraverse cephalopod -> capitoped chlorophyll -> viridofolia democracy -> populimpery homicide -> anthropoctony homosexual -> equigamic kilometer -> millimensure interregnum -> mesarchy magnanimous -> megapsychic manuscript -> chirography motorcycle -> ergatorote microscope -> parvovisor oxygen -> acidofex polyamory -> multierasty television -> remotoscope universe -> monostrophe