Just Killing Time Until Tomorrow...Again

[owa-tagoo-siam]

[siryouarebeingmocked]

Interesing opinion. Remind me what massively increased the amount of food available to everyone AND increased worldwide life expectancies?

Oh, right, capitalism and industrialization.

organized violence

When little Suzy opens a lemonade stand, what violence was involved?

Also, if you don't want capitalism, you probably want some sort of centralized state apparatus to take things from people, which will inevitably call for violence at some point.

I cannot comprehend why anyone would argue against this, but every time I say it everywhere I go I face nothing but backlash and resistance

"Everywhere I go, I meet jerks! Everyone else must be the problem!"

Money does not need to play any part in the process of growing harvesting and supplying food unless we ENFORCE that it does.

"I'm against violence. Also, I want to ban money from the economy, which will not involve violence at all."

Like I've said before, it's hard to fit three goats and a bale of hay into one's pocket. Mediums of exchange are common even without formal currency.

We could just decide tomorrow that things are different and then they would be. We proved that during lockdown.

You mean the thing that caused massive inflation and also may have caused critical damage to countless kids social and intellectual development, plus general mental distress?

It's really ironic how leftists insist capitalism is oppressive, and then support more oppressive government interference.

You don't even need money to have capitalism! Money existed long before capitalism!

[justkillingtimeuntiltomorrow2]

"I cannot comprehend why anyone would argue against this..."

In this context, this sentence is just another way of saying "I do not understand the arguments being made against me so I will dismiss them with emotional rhetoric." Not only have they failed to comprehend why anyone would argue against it, they have apparently failed to check into the history and challenges to their pet solution. Shockingly, failures to comprehend why mediums of exchange were created, logistical challenges of food production and transport, and that human labor is not an infinite pool of energy are not boons to intellectual rigor.

[thatsonemorbidcorvid]

‘Heroic actions are a natural tendency’: why bystander apathy is a myth

Modern research shows the public work together selflessly in an emergency, motivated by a strong impulse to help

“The notion that people panic and run screaming for the exits is a Hollywood fiction,” said Prof Stephen Reicher, an expert in group behaviour at the University of St Andrews.

“Characteristically, people stay and help each other,” he said. “We found this during the 7/7 attacks on the underground and the 1999 attack on the Admiral Duncan pub in London, where people looked after each other even though they feared other bombs.

“In our own research on the Leytonstone tube attack in 2015, there was an amazing level of spontaneous coordination by bystanders: some directed others away from danger. Some distracted the attacker. Some confronted the attacker. Each was able to act because of the others. Heroism was a feature of the group, not just the individual,” he added.

Prof Clifford Stott, a specialist in the psychology of crowds and group identity at Keele University, agreed. Modern research, he said, showed “bystander apathy” was a myth. Instead, strangers often work together in emergency situations with highly sophisticated unity.”

[cephalopodvictorious]

Bystander apathy is a myth invented by the New York Times to cover up that the police were called by several residents of the building, but the cops refused to act. The cops then told the Times that 38 people just watched her die (a seemingly arbitrary number and a physical impossibility based on where the attacks occurred), and the Times ran with it. In fact, Kitty was alive when the cops got there, and was being held and comforted by one of her friends who lived in the building because one of the people who saw her get attacked from across the street called her friend to go get her. Because people care.

The Bystander Effect Started from a Lie

You have just been attacked. How likely is it that someone will come to your help? If you remember the infamous case of Kitty Genovese in 19

[moosepower]

I will always re-blog this. The story of Kitty Genovese’s murder has gone down in history as a story about everyone watching it happen and doing nothing and none of the story is true.

[disgruntled-foreign-patriarch]

I always knew there was something fishy about the whole Kitty Genovese story. It's so starkly opposite to normal human attitudes to...anything else.

Just look at every disaster, every crisis. There are hundreds of people, usually complete strangers, coordinating with each other to help those in the worst straits. We humans are social creatures with a natural empathy towards other humans, whether they're related or important to us or not.

[justkillingtimeuntiltomorrow2]

I mean...guys. C'mon, you realize that the bystander effect is not SOLELY based on the Kitty Genovese story, right? It inspired the research, but wasn't even really a cornerstone of developing it. And IIRC, the research found that it is more complex and contextual than just 'number of people around'. I even recall reading a study in a psychology class (must've been some time in the 00 decade) where a general bystander effect was studied in specifically violent emergency situations, and found that people were more likely to intervene regardless of the presence of another person.

I just went looking for it, I think this is it:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejsp.297

It's less that the effect is a myth, and more that it's not describing what most people think it is. It's not even really about apathy; hesitation would be a better descriptor.

[thegrimpler]

Where's that one post where OP gets all defensive because someone (likely rightfully) accuses her of wanting to engage in sex acts that her husband isn't comfortable doing?

[crabs-and-bedbugs]

I haven't seen that post, but I do have this

[seriousfic]

[theenlightenedoutlaw]

Ok, despite the fact that my header image declares me to be a Son of Liberty, I rarely post openly about political shit. I am certain that it is not difficult to determine where I stand, generally speaking, but I try to keep the activism off of my page.

But this is an issue that I am unwilling to ignore. Largely because this is not a Left/Right issue.

I encourage you to watch the video, S2 Underground explains the issue FAR better than I can.

I encourage you to follow the link to deflock dot org. Look at the map, figure out how often you have had your 4th amendment rights violated based on nothing more than your route to work, or the gym, or the grocery, or the surf break, or the hiking trail, or, God forbid, the range. I encourage you to take steps to protect yourself, to the degree possible. TURN OFF YOUR BLUETOOTH when out in public. Be careful about your phone conversations and your text messages, even the photos you have saved. (yes, even your sick ass memes.)

I further encourage you to call your local government, your state representatives, and your congresspeople. Be polite, be respectful, but voice your opposition to these devices.

We all want safe streets and communities, but this is not the way to do it.

Outlaw, out.

DeFlock

Find license plate readers (LPRs) near you.

[grapnel]

An example of why one should use the Oxford comma.

[h0lyshift]

The older i get the more i understand why some people become obsessed with privacy, not because they’re hiding something, but because being constantly perceived starts to feel spiritually exhausting.

[melyzard]

Did you know that soda machines at restaurants and movie theaters spy on you? That most common new cars now record your sexual preferences and send it to the manufacturer (and also data about anyone who also gets in your car, walks by your car, and maybe happens to be within visual range of your car)? That grocery stores are trying to force customers to download an app to scan barcodes on shelves instead of putting up prices, so the app can scan the phone, decide how much that customer should be squeezed for, and adjust the price? That more and more innocent people are being sent to jail for crimes committed hundreds of miles away because an AI facial recognition algorithm spit their faces out and the cops didn't bother to do the most basic of checks?

I am not uptight about privacy because I'm hiding something. I'm uptight about it because the people who dismiss my right to privacy are dangerous to you and me and our families, personally, all the time.

And often, they are assholes, too.

[mornington-the-crescent]

[justkillingtimeuntiltomorrow2]

Those arrests based on facial recognition REALLY piss me off - 'ChatGPT did my homework' ass cops

[sonandheirofnothinginparticular]

[knifenymph]

change does not come from a place of comfort

[aquareaper3]

I find pennies and nickels in my couch all the time, so I don’t know what you are talking about

[homofied]

[opalfairy]

[thememedaddy]

[beardedmrbean]

[crabs-and-bedbugs]

[enriquemzn262]

New fear unlocked.

[thememedaddy]

[nightbringer24]

Someone's putting the G.R.R. Martin quote of "Ruling in the Medieval period was hard. Like, what was Aragorn's tax policy?"

And I've finally narrowed in on what bugs me the most about that comment. it misses the most fundamental thing about The Lord of the Rings and Aragorn specifically.

Aragorn is The One True King. He is THE perfect monarch for Gondor and the Numenorean line. He will fix things ("The hands of the king are the hands of the healer"), he will reconnect not just the living but the dead and right old oaths that have been wronged.

Aragorn is the classical example of the king. Not an absolutist monarch, but someone who is meant to be good and do good for all in the kingdom.

Was being a Medieval ruler hard? FUCK YES IT WAS. Undoubtedly. But The Lord of the Rings is NOT that sort of story.

[nightbringer24]

Also, from Tolkien's own words:

"I never set out to write a treatise on medieval governance or the practical burdens of kingship. My work is a mythology an exploration of moral truth, not political mechanics. Aragorn is not meant to be a bureaucrat but an archetype: the just king of legend, much like Arthur. Myth is concerned with the heart of a ruler, not the tax policies of his court.

The question of governance in the modern sense belongs to another kind of story one that I entirely respect, but did not seek to write. Real history is indeed complicated, but myth speaks to deeper, older truths. Power in my world is already perilous; no one may wield it without cost. Even the wise refuse the Ring, for good intentions alone are never sufficient. In that sense, my work hardly denies the burden of rule it only treats it in a different language.

As for the orcs: they are not a people I delight in destroying. Their existence is a tragedy, a corruption of something that was once good. No just king would slaughter the innocent, for even in the darkest creatures there remains a spark of the original creation. Mercy is not weakness; it is the highest form of strength.

You ask questions proper to politics. I ask questions proper to myth. Both have their place, but they need not answer each other in the same terms."

I can only find the clip from the interview on Twitter so here it is.

[the-davest-of-uncles]

G.R.R.M. needs to learn to not open his yap about his betters.

[generallemarc]

I hate to keep invoking the Epic Rap Battle lyrics in regards to GRRM being a pale shadow of Tolkein, but they really did nail it

We all know the world is full of chance and anarchy

So yes it's true to life for characters to die randomly

But news flash! The genre's called fantasy

It's meant to be UNrealistic you myopic manatee!

[siryouarebeingmocked]

[truthandlibertarianism]

What bugs me is when people take that Martin quote out of context and then attack Martin for reasons that they made up. Martin was not disparaging Tolkien or his world or his writing with that comment. He was talking about the types of things that inspired him to write ASOIAF.

Martin does not dislike LOTR or think himself a better writer than Tolkien. In a recent anthology of Martin's short fiction, he wrote about when he read LOTR for the first time and how it almost discouraged him from becoming a writer because he knew he would never be able to write anything as cool as that series.

Ultimately, ASOIAF is about humanity and their flaws. The world and the impossible decisions that leaders have to make. Yes, LOTR has Aragorn as the ONE TRUE KING, and that's relevant to the context of that world. I'm sure Martin is well aware of that fact. But when he says "what was Aragorn's tax policy?" -- he's talking about the type of thoughts he was having about rulers when he was coming up with Game of Thrones. In the real world, there is no One True King. There is no perfect ruler that will lead everyone into paradise and utopia. Both good and bad rulers have to make hard decisions, and sometimes, they will make the wrong choice, even if they have the best of intentions.

The point of "what is Aragorn's tax policy" is that LOTR is a fantasy land with a fantasy ruler. And Martin wanted to explore the implications of real men in real positions of power.

[beardedmrbean]

Wonder how they feel about a hush falling over the crowd

[correctopinionhaver]

me beholding my female mutuals