If I follow you and you’re wondering why, it’s probably because I saw you followed one or more of my side blogs and while I was checking to see if you were a bot I liked your vibes.
When I was 10 I asked my dad to explain politics to me and when he was done with his shockingly nuanced description of the American bipartisan system he asked me how I would structure the government if it was up to me. I described a world where everyone was paid what they needed, had a house, and enough food. He said, "Void-juice that's great, but you should know most people call that communism".
I've told this story on here before but @void--juice's story made me think of it again...
My dad worked for NASA and he did a lot of work on the telescopes that went up in the late 90s/early 2000s. I was a curious kid and I knew his work really mattered to my dad so I was always asking about when things were getting launched. Often the answer was "we're waiting on Congress for funding" or similar. And one time... I was probably about 10 years old, I said "well... I guess that makes sense. I'm sure going to space is one of the most expensive things we do."
And my dad looks at me... I'll never forget the look on his face. He goes "What do you think the most expensive thing we do as a country is?"
And I hemmed and I hawed because I was sure it wasn't the space program even though I was sure that had to be in the top three. My first guess was education. Everyone had to go to school. Nope. Roads? Bridges? Cars were everywhere. Nope. What about... things like electricity? Phone lines? Cable? Nope.
"The military. By a factor of ten at least."
I was gobsmacked. It was peacetime (at least by most reckoning... this was post-Gulf War and well before 9/11). What the hell was the military doing being so expensive if we weren't doing anything with it?
So that was the moment I became a "radical." Because that was absolutely stupid and continues to be.
As a computer guy: This is what happens when you have too much security. It reaches a tipping point and then suddenly you have none.
Security at the cost of convenience comes at the cost of security.
This is true of so many things in healthcare. Example: our software is designed to automatically alert the doctor if a patient’s vital signs are critically out of range. If someone has a blood pressure of 200/130, the doc gets a pop-up box that they have to acknowledge before doing anything else. It makes sense, in our setting.
But then some mega-genius upstairs realized something: the system was only alerting for critical vital signs, but not for all vital signs that could possibly be bad. Like, yeah, 200/130 is potentially life-threatening, but 130/90 is above ideal and can have negative effects on health. Should the doctors be allowed to just ignore something that could negatively affect a patient’s health? Heavens no!
So now the system generates a pop-up for any vital signs that are even slightly abnormal. A pressure of 120/80 (once considered textbook normal, now considered slightly high) will create the pop-up. We have increased our vigilance!
Well, no, what we’ve actually done is train doctors to click through a constant bombardment of pop-ups without looking. We’ve destroyed their vigilance and made it much easier for them to accidentally skim past life-threatening vital signs.
But you can’t tell that to management, because you’d have to confess that you are a flawed human with limited attention resources. They’d tell you “well, all the other doctors take every abnormal vital sign seriously, it sounds like you’re being negligent.” And if you’re smart, you back down before you start telling the big boss all about your habit of ignoring critical safety alerts.
The end result is exactly the same as if we had no alerts at all, except with more annoying clicking.
The other issue is that most computer security is designed by people who will never work the jobs if those using their security systems.
No nurse has the mental bandwidth to remember 15 different passwords to 15 different computers. They have to remember which patients need what, who’s getting what medication when, who’s allergic to penicillin, and a million other things. Of course the passwords are going to be written on a piece of paper by the computers, they need to move fast.
My college apartment building made their fire alarms super sensitive, with the idea being that it would stop people from smoking in the units. What it actually did was set the damn things off all the time while people were cooking. So most people in the building just put cling film over their smoke alarms to stop them from reacting to regular cooking and would just take it off for an inspection.
The fire alarm story makes a really good point because, this isn’t just a problem with computer security, it’s a much bigger problem of, corporate workers thinking they know better than the people who actually do the job.
I deal with this a lot, as a truck driver. Trucks are being built with a lot of new, fancy safety features that sound really nice to the corporate people who buy the trucks and the insurance companies that offer discounts for having them on the truck. The problem? All of those devices are designed, and tested, under perfectly ideal conditions and those are the only conditions they work under.
My favorite example is the system my current truck has that automatically steers the truck, if it thinks I’m too close to a line. Within the first month of having that, I nearly killed someone riding a bike because, when I merged, to go around them, the truck saw the line and tried to steer back into the lane.
The reality of these new systems is that trucks now have a lot of alarms that frequently set off when there’s not actually anything wrong. Most drivers are now constantly monitoring the ones that can be turned off, which is taking their attention away from the road. The ones that can’t be turned off, are so loud, and annoying, that we’re now seeing a major increase in drivers having anger issues (that’s not something you want a truck driver to have BTW). Meanwhile, a lot of people, in some office, are patting themselves on the back for the system they designed that works great, on a closed road, in California, in perfect weather
Transphobia is about to be signed into law in the UK. We can fight this.
I am begging the UK trans community and its allies to attend the Mass Lobby at Parliament on June 25th, 11am-4pm, organised by Trans Solidarity Alliance.
Last year we broke the record for an LGBT+ mass lobby of Parliament. Will you help us break it again? Join us on 25th June 2026 to demand be
The new EHRC Code of Practice pushes trans people out of toilets, hospital wards, and community spaces. It normalises gender policing based on appearance and stereotypes. It becomes statutory guidance in the UK by the end of June.
Trans people are now legally their assigned gender at birth and must join gendered spaces accordingly, but if they are perceived as their lived gender, they can also be ejected from those spaces. The guidance says: either break the law, or don’t pass too well.
A mass lobby is where you invite your MP to discuss your concerns with you in-person. Ask your MP to:
Demand full parliamentary scrutiny, debate, and use their free vote on the EHRC Code of Practice.
Support any motions rejecting the EHRC guidance. As of June 4th, Labour MP Nadia Whittome has submitted a prayer motion - Early Day Motion 240.
Write to Bridget Phillipson, the Minister for Women and Equalities about our concerns
Your MP does not have to be an ally, they do not have to respond to your email for you to show up and greencard them (details below the cut.) What matters is that as many people as possible show up.
I cannot stress this enough: Showing up in person matters. It is much more effective than petitions, emails, and letters.
It is a horrible, stressful time, and I am so sorry if you're trans and live in the UK. But I was at last year's mass lobby and the line for greencarding alone stretched around the back gates. It was a record breaking mass lobby and made us impossible to ignore. Let's do even better this time. Details under the cut:
Worried about what to say?
Bring your personal worries about transphobia being signed into law, and trans friends being excluded from public spaces. You are a living person who deserves dignity. Remind your MP of that. You will also get guidance and brochures from Trans Solidarity Alliance that outlines our demands. This is mine from last year.
Money issues?
Trans Solidarity Alliance provides a travel bursary that you can sign up for via the link.
Got a refusal or no response from your MP?
Come anyway! You can request a same-day appointment with your MP through a process called greencarding. They will come and see you if they’re already in Parliament. Even if they don’t, they’re made acutely aware of your cause because you showed up in person. This is my greencard from last year.
Here is the EHRC Code of Practice in full. It's a tough read, but some highlights are:
Organisations can’t provide trans-inclusive, single-sex services, or they risk being sued for discrimination.
e.g. domestic violence support for women including trans women, men’s rugby group including trans men (12.68).
Trans people will have nowhere safe to pee.
If you’re a trans man, businesses can't allow you to pee in the men's, and you can also be ejected from women’s bathrooms if you’re perceived as a man. Vice versa for trans women. EHRC suggests a ‘third space’ bathroom, which is discriminatory and unworkable for most businesses. (13.130-133)
Sports organisations must exclude trans people from single-sex competitions (13.73).
A women’s only sports competition must exclude trans women because of their biological advantage or face potential lawsuits (13.74), but a trans man who has undergone testosterone treatment can also be excluded based on fairness rules (13.81).
Trans women are stripped of the legal definition of ‘lesbian’, and therefore no longer have legal protections if they’re discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation. (2.50, 2.92).
Here is the Good Law Project's better explanation of the EHRC Code.
I have also made a PDF printout of QR codes for the government petition, email your MP tool, and mass lobby link to pass around your communities. DM me and I'll send it to you.
I know I’m being an insufferable worldbuilding nerd here, but my basic metric for evaluating media with very inhuman protagonists is “how easily can one offer a complete and coherent account of this media’s plot without ever mentioning the fact that the protagonist is, for example, a talking car?”. The harder it is, the higher it scores.
Years ago I was on a business trip to Japan and I got sick, so my manager who was with me took me to the hospital because my body had been evacuating itself.
Now, we were in Nagoya where very few people speak English so I had to wait to see a doctor who could speak English.
When the doctor came in he was tall, like 6’5” and because he’d done his residency in California had a perfect Californian accent.
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