Am I a ghost, then?

Jasper | he/they/ze | im an adult | just a nerdy dude who likes puns and hyperfixates on cartoons n anime a lot | I yell in my tags | background is by @jamiekinosian header is from @happymoomin

[opanchu]

[asteroidtroglodyte]

Me, passing a car covered in horny thirst-trap anime girl stickers: while I personally find this to be cringe, given the national push for censorship, I must concede that this is technically Praxis.

[shieldfoss]

#driving my Toyota Praxis

[tlaquetzqui]

The Japanese name for cars with those stickers is itasha. Which literally means “pain chariot” but is more idiomatically translated “cringemobile”.

[lizardsfromspace]

If you dig into unfounded plagiarism claims, you find quickly that not many are grifts. The vast majority are people who do genuinely feel they were stolen from, and who feel genuine hurt from it...they're just wrong, from the perspective of a neutral observer.

The writer of the 1973 short story "12:01 PM" was not lying when he said Groundhog Day ripped it off, or when he went to lawyers for six months to figure out if he had a case; he spent the rest of his life convinced Groundhog Day stole from him. But the lawyers were right: he would lose, because basically the only similarity between the two stories is the existence of a time loop. "12:01 PM" is a sci-fi story where a man repeats an hour of his life due to a glitch of science; Groundhog Day is a fantasy romcom where a man repeats a day of his life until he becomes a better person with no stated cause for the loop. It would only be plagiarism in a world where you could copyright plots & own the concept of a "time loop"...and in that case there were definitely time loop stories before 1973, so "12:01 PM" would be plagiarism too. And in this world, looking at a story about a time loop & going "I should make my own, totally unique story about a time loop" is not plagiarism, either, it's inspiration (there's no evidence the creators of Groundhog Day ever saw or read "12:01 PM", but it'd be fine if they had). But it wasn't a grift; after all, he didn't sue in the end, it was someone close to his work being unable to look at it objectively. Who can blame him?

[lizardsfromspace]

Viral plagiarism cases are so often discredited with even cursory research, one glance at legal documents citing ownership of broad genre tropes or shared inspiration or making up absurd comparisons (like The Holdovers one citing a meeting with two old friends as equivalent to the protagonist *seeing a billboard*), but the narrative of a wronged author going up against the man is so powerful and easy to latch onto, even if in practice each case is usually a writer - in some cases the *more* resourced one! - attacking another writer. It undercuts our critical thinking by establishing good and evil from the get, and has people rooting for someone who thinks that they own common storytelling conventions or the lives of historical figures and that someone else needs to be driven out of public life over it

Simply put the majority of viral plagiarism cases are unfounded. Plagiarism does obviously happen, but the type of writer-suing-somebody case you see in the media usually falls apart since...it's just that pattern over and over. But usually, their anger is sincere. It's just wrong.

[hidefdoritos]

BTW today I met a person who's at least 50, uses they/it pronouns, and named themself Wyvern. It looks like if Santa was a biker and it plays D&D at the local library. Just a reminder that you can do whatever you want, forever.

[velvetcloak]

[vaspider]

I think it's really important to point out one of the major flaws in that highway analogy:

Eminent domain requires payment.

The government cannot come in and merely seize your land under eminent domain and pay you nothing. There is a process & they have to pay you market value for your land and the buildings on it. A couple of my former clients went through this about 15 years ago when the 202 Bypass went through in Montgomery & Bucks County in Pennsylvania. Their houses and land were taken via eminent domain so that the highway could be built, but, I need to say this again: they were paid.

They were paid and there was a process in which they were informed ahead of time. They didn't just drive home one day and find out their home had been snatched, too bad, so sad, no money for you, you should have put your house in a bank vault.

Just taking someone's shit like that without compensation has a name, and it's not eminent domain or anything like it:

It's fucking theft.

(I'm not interested in hearing the same tired shit about how copyright is inherently bad and only protects corporations, because as someone who deals with protecting my livelihood from scammers and scrapers via copyright every goddamned day, this isn't a fun mental exercise/philosophical debate for me, and you're absolutely wrong. Fucking save it for someone ignorant enough and with time to waste on that.)

[vmures]

The highway argument is also disingenuous in that ignores the very real harms caused by the systems that decide which neighborhoods to target and who precisely is going to be displaced. From numerous historically black neighborhoods being demolished to farmers being displaced and left with no livelihood. There has been a great deal of harm done in the name of public good. https://historyfortomorrow.org/story/eminent-domain-and-the-displacement-of-black-communities/ https://thenarrativematters.com/eminent-domains-devastating-impact-on-communities-of-color/

https://www.condemnation-law.com/blog/general-eminent-domain/farm-land-and-eminent-domain/ https://www.vermontpublic.org/programs/2019-10-29/interstates-burning-farms-eminent-domain-remembering-romaine-tenney

There have long been worries about the abuse of eminent domain, and the AI scraping model is far closer to the abusive aspects of eminent domain than any supposed public good aspect. https://ij.org/issues/private-property/eminent-domain/eminent-domain-history/ https://www.purdybailey.com/blog/2020/january/5-famous-cases-of-eminent-domain-abuse/

Anytime someone brings up an argument that states something is for the greater good, always ask yourself "for whose greater good?" Who benefits most, who gets harmed the most, what are the actual harms when you think through the logistics and future implications of the harms and not just the immediate harm, is there remuneration for the harm being caused, is it sufficient?

These are all things that must be asked before proceeding with any so called public works plan. Anyone who tells you otherwise is scamming you.

[vaspider]

Oh, completely agreed. I only didn't go that far bc, like, you don't even need to before the argument entirely falls apart. But yeah, if people don't know about how eminent domain has been used to destroy Black neighborhoods in particular, they should read up and ask the questions.

[stainedglassboots-blog]

Let’s say you wanted to glue fabric to wood, but what do you use? What about glass to paper? This to That lets you choose two things you want to glue and lists what types of glue is best. (Because people have a need to glue things to other things!)

[dramaticthreads]

This is an incredibly awesome site.  Go check it out!

[aicosu]

Whhhhaaaaaattt!???

[techfails]

EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT THIS

This is one of the first websites I was told about in props. It also has information about the toxicity, adhere time, price, and other stuff about the glues.

[geekhyena]

Useful for cosplayers and DIY!

[murasakidoku]

I feel personally attacked.

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

[replacement for first link, which wasn’t working] 

I went through the whole thing just to see what it said for each combination. 

[scorpio-system]

AAA video game publisher voice: "Look. The goose layed a golden egg, and that's nice! Everyone loved that egg. But keeping the golden goose means paying for bird feed and I don't want to, so I killed the goose."

[vanshira]

#‘that goose keeps laying golden eggs. that’s stagnation. I’m going to kill it and go look for a goose that lays diamond eggs’#‘that goose normally lays golden eggs but this time it laid a silver egg. I’m going to kill it because even though I can still make good#money with that it’s not as good as a golden egg’#‘that golden egg laying goose only lays an egg once a day instead of constantly shitting them out. I don’t care that golden eggs take time#if they’re not constant the goose is worthless to me’

@thebaldursmouthgazette y u leave all the good stuff in the tags

[voidsentprinces]

[egirlbutternubs]

No i didn't "forget to pack a toothbrush and a phone charger" its called on site procurement. Solid snake does it too

[skaldish]

To my international friends: If you ever wonder why Americans are the way they are, just remember that 1/3rd of all US citizens are in a cult that teaches them to suppress the activity of their prefrontal cortex, particularly when it comes to doubt, critical thinking, and differentiating emotional responses from personal values.

[skaldish]

1/3rd of Americans are Evangelical, and Evangelical Protestantism is a cult. We just don’t think of it as one because it’s so normalized. However, it follows the B.I.T.E. model of cult dynamics.

Evangelism teaches its followers to always maintain states of bliss and ecstasy for Jesus. What this does is condition the brain to always operate out of less-evolved parts; areas that are responsible for more primal emotions like euphoria, anger, and fear. Because of how we’ve evolved to survive, the brain will actually shut down our higher functioning—including critical thinking skills—in favor of these primal emotions, when they’re active.

Always feeling bliss = never questioning or feeling doubt. Evangelicals may actually fear the thoughts that do originate from their higher brain-parts because they think it’s the devil tempting them away from their religion. They’ll engage in self-indoctrination techniques to make this stop.

This creates a cognitive dissonance so great that many Americans have no separation between how they feel and what they believe. This is really bad because their minds have literally no defense against undue influence. They’ll vote for the dude who hyped them up enough. They’ll buy into the conspiracy theory that excites them the most. They’ll side with whatever gets the best reaction out of them, and getting a rise out of people is super easy to do.

Things like financial insecurity and low employment make this worse, too.

[skaldish]

And just to be clear, this kind of conditioning can happen to anyone, regardless of their intellectual capacity.

Cult conditioning has nothing to do with how smart or dumb people are. You can condition literally any brain with the right time and environment.

Counteracting undue influence is a skill, and like any skill, it needs to be taught.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Cult experts frequently point out that the smarter people are, the more susceptible they are to this once the initial hooks are in, and the harder they are to deprogram. This is because while this kind of conditioning does not rely on intelligence, the ability to rationalise does -- the smarter someone is, the better they can rationalise what they already believe, so if they’re committed to following their feelings, a smart person is much better at making it seem (to themselves as well as others) that they’re actually using logic and reason rather than making ad-hoc justifications after the fact.

Also, people who know (or believe) that they’re smarter than average tend to assume that this makes them harder to fool, conditon, or lie to. Which makes somebody much easier to fool, condition, or lie to.

[faint-petrichor-deactivated2026]

So I am from the US but now live in Argentina, and as The American(tm) I often get reasonably asked the question, "Why are Americans, you know, like that?"

The best and most immediate answer I could come up with, and the one I've stuck to, is telling people that America is a country defined by being a haven for cults and religious extremists since its inception. And people are always like "god that makes so much sense."

But you know, the wildest thing is if I tried to tell any given American this (which I have) chances are they'd be like, "No way, that's absurd." And I think the thing is, if you're an American and have lived most or all of your life in America, this is just your normal. But when you live somewhere that is less saturated with religious dogma, cults and anti-intellectualism, it's readily apparent.

[aizhits]

Adding to this: Nationalism to the point where it becomes cult-like (or just straight up a cult you decide! :))

Example: All schools elementary to High school are required to do the pledge of allegiance and stand for the flag.

Builds a culture around constantly being loyal to "your" country, not matter what, every day.

[scrambled-aegis]

his markings are a pain to draw but also so so so cool

(as apology for the last rocky fanart I posted 😔)

[ladyshinga]

please god we are all so fucking tired

[breathe-in-your-binder]

if you're wearing a binder right now

sit/stand up straight

relax your shoulders

chest out

take a deep breath in all the way down to your belly

exhale slowly

and another deep breath

and out again

[unthrifty--loveliness-deactivat]

Just so we’re clear, if I point out that you did something racist, that’s not the same as me thinking you’re irremediably terrible. You did a racist thing.

[unthrifty--loveliness-deactivat]

You think you don’t do racist things, homophobic things, etc? You do. I caught myself in fat phobic and homophobic lines of thinking/speech just this morning. I’m fucking gay married. Nothing disqualifies you from acting in a way that reflects the society you exist in. We are obliged to fight it. Why not fight it in honesty and with camaraderie?

[urfavhatesterfs]

YOU hates terfs

[switchingtogeico]

[captainhaterade]

[stankpasta]

rb if u hates terfs

[official-pussy-posts-2]

Official ‘terfs get out of my house’ Post

[yeehawpim]

having a ponder about being aromantic and the kinds of friendships or qprs I might want to have

[imjunebitch]

in a world where happy rich people sell the discontent lower class the lie that money cant buy you happiness it is at least reassuring to know that our sole trillionaire is the most pathetic, unloved, miserable, alone human being on the planet, and that NOTHING could make him happy. get fuckeddd lol

[weaseltotheface]

Everybody say "thank you south america" for the humble potato

[weaseltotheface]

Actually let's get specific with it

*checks wiki*

Everybody say thank you indigenous people of present-day southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia from 7-10,000 years ago for the humble potato