ENTER THE BEAR CIRCLE

Eli, 28, he/himbo, formerly ToeBeanz Do no harm, take no shit. Feel free to message me or send asks but if you're gonna send hate at least make it fun, generic one word ones are just boring.

[monsterpotion]

"You can now sort your likes from oldest to newest on web and iOS. Do you remember what your first liked post was?"

oh dear

[monsterpotion]

oh its bad back there.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[omtai]

Im sorry I didn’t reply to your message for three weeks. I did not forget about it infact I thought about it regularly every day. It will happen again

[tearlessrain]

actually caring about the rights and safety of children is so stressful right now because a large amount of the time I'm sitting there internally screaming "THAT'S WORSE. THAT POLICY IS GOING TO ACTIVELY CAUSE HARM TO CHILDREN YOU ARE MAKING IT WORSE." and nobody cares because it's not actually about protecting children but the thing is children actually do need more protection very badly, just not like that. REALLY not like that. and the things that would actually protect children (education, greater personal autonomy, access to knowledge and resources that don't hinge on their parents being willing/able to provide them) would give adults less absolute power over them and that upsets too many people who see children as status symbols and tools and extensions of themselves.

[dumbpuppyfag]

there's a massive, underreported subculture on this site that i can only describe as secular mormonism if mormons voted democrat

[dumbpuppyfag]

zero moral nuance

queer-inclusive but still misogynist

don't have to be from the US, do have to act like you are

ostensibly welcoming to everybody, mysteriously white as hell

terrified of the idea that sex could be enjoyable for anyone

absolutely incapable of structural critique, everything is individual moral choices

enforcement through public humiliation and isolation accountability :)

fear of infiltration by a corrupting outside influence - asserting a right to privacy or failing to publicly demonstrate moral in-group status is treated as a confession

the worst music you've ever heard in your life

[theres-a-hole-in-my-wall]

shunning out the unwanted making a callout post + harassment campaign

[dogpuppy]

[doubleca5t]

Uhhhh let me be queer

[duckbunny]

your twenties are not "late" to start hrt. that is a normal time to start hrt. your thirties are also a normal time to start hrt. your seventies are pretty late to start hrt, but not too late. like, statistically, that's at the end of the curve. but if you are not dead, it is not too late for hrt.

[justsomeguycore]

horror movie showing a child’s drawing of the monster or ghost or whatever but instead of a little kid and crayons they’re like a preteen and it’s manga style

[systlin]

"Sys how is your decent into fiber arts hell going"

Glad you asked. I have arrived at 'modern flax is Bullshit compared to what we had in historical textiles, the flax widely available for handspinning is basically the tow that would be discarded from textile creation and used with tar to caulk ships back in the day'

This naturally led me down a hole of 'why is the staple length of this stuff a bullshit 6 inches' and the answer is 'we have bred modern flax more for the oil than the fiber because cotton usurped the place of everyday textile thanks to slavery and the cotton gin'

Anyway, THIS led me to a rabbit hole that culminated in me finding flax seed bred for proper 30 inch tall plants for fiber, sold by some fellow minded nerds on a website that has not been updated since 1998 and you have to email them to buy anything.

Anyway how are all of you doing.

[systlin]

I FAILED YOU ALL here is the site. You can also buy flax fiber from them. The PROPER shit, not the hot garbage ass tow fiber sold as flax top for handspinners.

[systlin]

'machine combing shortens the flax fibers by several inches'

This right here is part of why modern linen is a pale shadow of historical linen. Legitimately it cannot be properly replicated by machines. It HAS to be made by human hands if you want the best quality.

[deadstuffguy]

You are making it harder and harder not to turn my side yard into a flax field. I don’t have the capacity right now to start a flax field and produce my own linen from scratch but my god you’re making it hard to stay within my limits and not start a flax plot

[deadstuffguy]

Nice

[ms-demeanor]

I guess killing civilians is only okay when iran does it

Hi folks, if you're not sure how to have anti-war discussions with people around you I'd like you to take a minute to read this.

This anon is not asking this question in good faith, and this is the kind of redirection/defense that you'll see in a lot of people making pro-war arguments.

The goal of this is to put YOU on the defensive, it's to make you say "of course I don't support killing civilians" or to litigate the count of protesters killed by the Iranian government or to in some other way get you to stop talking about the subject.

The best way to respond to rhetorical attacks like this is to simply not get defensive. Here are some ways to redirect back to your point:

I don't pay taxes to Iran, I am talking about actions of the US military because I pay for the US military. Why are you trying to shift focus away from talking about the actions of the US military?

I said [that the US military shouldn't bomb civilian targets/it is wrong to attack a nation we are in negotiations with] and you are changing the subject. Why don't you agree that [the us military shouldn't bomb civilian targets/it is wrong to attack a nation we are in negotiations with]?

That's a very silly thing to say, and would be a ridiculous thing to believe; why are you making a childish argument instead of addressing the point that the US shouldn't bomb civilians?

I hold the US military to a higher standard than the IRGC, which is why I'm talking about the US military's actions. Don't you agree that the US shouldn't commit war crimes?

Often the person you're talking to will double down, and will say something like "Oh so you DO think it's okay to murder women for religious crimes" or "i can't believe you're defending the Iranian regime's massacre of protesters" and you just have to stick to your guns, point out that they're changing the subject, and redirect to the actual argument.

Remember that when people make rhetorical advances like this, they aren't doing it to have their minds changed or because it's what they actually believe, they are doing it to get you to stop making the argument that you were before. Online and in person debate is about the optics of your side; if you give in to an urge to be defensive you weaken your case or provide ammunition that can be used to undermine your other positions. If you stay on message the person who is coming at you in bad faith ends up demonstrating that they don't actually have a response to your point, which makes your position come off as more convincing to onlookers.

This is not about truth-seeking (you know the truth, and are advocating for it), it is about winning people to your position.

[lipstickchainsaw]

'Oh yes, I'm sure those civilians are way better off now it's the Americans killing them,' is also a good rejoinder, I feel.

[ms-demeanor]

That's a reasonable response if you're trying to land a dunk and move on, but if it's a conversation that people are watching it is still allowing the other person to change the subject and weakening your position because to an onlooker that looks like this:

Alice: The US shouldn't bomb civilians.

Bob: So you're saying it's okay for the Iranian regime to murder civilians?

Alice: Oh yes, I'm sure those civilians are way better off now it's the Americans killing them.

Bob: Nobody should be killing civilians either way! Why aren't you condemning the Iranian regime's murder of protestors!

Alice: Of course I don't condone the regime's murder of protestors, but Americans shouldn't be killing civilians!

Bob: Nobody should be killing civilians, that's why America is stopping them, America is focused on military targets!

Alice: Then America shouldn't be killing the civilians!

Bob: The schoolgirls are unfortunate collateral damage, but nobody else will stop the Iranians from killing their own people, why are you okay with that?

And then the onlooker is going "Actually why DOESN'T Alice condemn that? It should be easy enough to do," or "Bob had a stronger point than I thought, maybe I need to do some more reading before I form an opinion."

If they get you off topic, they win because you now have the uphill battle of getting back on topic while also now having to fend off attacks about how you haven't condemned the regime.

There's a standard method to this that is part of why it's such a bad idea for college students to agree to filmed debate with Ben Shapiro or why left-leaning subject matter experts shouldn't sit on Fox News panels. You may know a lot about the things you know about and you may be right, but it isn't about being right it's about whether the other person can undermine you as a speaker enough to make your argument look weak.

[chaumas-deactivated20240115]

why do you refer to your disabled partner as an “it”?

I’m trying to objectify and dehumanize it because I am a bad person and an abuser. and I would have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for you meddling kids!

[creekfiend]

we do it as a sex thing. whatever kind of sex thing would make you personally the angriest

[chaumas-deactivated20240115]

yeah it’s the worst kind of sex thing

[cartooncoyote]

This is actually the best intro to a porno that has ever existed

[satanblessitt-deactivated201608]

There is no way this is a porno

[zombiesahoy]

This is the best porno there has ever been.

[usingtimewisely]

The way he says “HEY WHAT THE FUCK” shaped me as a person

[foldingfittedsheets]

I hope today someone is in the lucky 10,000 and sees this for the first time.

[beardedmrbean]

[theprofessional-amateur]

[the-real-seebs]

i've seen this so many times and never noticed that

[beardedmrbean]

[what-even-is-thiss]

Taking up Japanese as a side project for myself has reminded me of something.

So like a long time ago I had a professor that I absolutely adored. She happened to be Japanese American. She grew up speaking Japanese at home but never really spent a lot of time in Japan. She mostly spoke with other Japanese Americans and read books.

So one day early in her teaching career there’s an exchange student from Japan who’s having a hard time understanding a concept so she explained it to him in Japanese and then he looked absolutely rattled. Like in shock. Pale.

This is how she learned that the way she speaks Japanese makes her sound like a gang member.

Japanese doesn’t exactly have cuss words in the same way as English does but imagine that the nicest professor you’ve ever had pulls your paper over and says “Okay listen here you little piece of shit I’m gonna fucking explain this to you. Violently.”