Le Main Blog

Dasje-23-she/they For main blogging business and conversations, also, vocaloid, also, my OCs, also, Les Miserables The main blog of many side blogs *cough* an-otaku-marshmallow *cough* @all-alone-in-the-moonlight is the one who provided my pretty icon

[vinceaddams]

It's nice that loud noises don't stick to clothes like smells do. That would be really bad if they did.

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[hypokeimena]

#'this is present in the text' is often a good first step #but those second and third ones (naming it; describing its function) are vital (via @elucubrare)

[adhdo5]

Tumblr post 1: Stories are all too grimdark and such it is fash doomerism to assume reality is evil What we need in these times is stories that inspire hope that is truly revolutionary

Tumblr post 2: Stories are all too fluffy and happy and such it is fash revisionism to shy away from the darkness What we need in these times is stories that are cathartic and unsettling that is truly revolutionary

MORAL: All storytelling is evil (telling lies)

[flipocrite]

If I may be evil for a moment, this reminds me of that Aesop’s fable of the father and son going to town to sell their donkey, passing various disapproving villagers on the way:

“Look at those idiots, both walking when one of them could ride the creature.”

“The boy riding while the father walks? Kids these days have no respect for their elders.”

“What a cruel man, riding while such a young boy is forced to walk!”

“Hey! Both of you get off that donkey before you kill the poor thing!”

So they tied the thing up by its hooves to some wooden poles carried over their shoulders, like a hunted boar. When they were crossing the bridge into town, the townsfolk laughed so raucously at the pair finding the worst solution imaginable that the startled donkey started to kick free of its restraints and it fell into the river and died.

MORAL: There is some secret sixth way to transport the donkey that makes everyone happy and they just didn’t think about it long enough to figure out what it is. You can always please everyone with your creative works or self-expression if you just try hard enough (lie).

REAL MORAL: They should have kept the donkey home. The best way to keep everyone happy is to never engage in any form of self-expression or creativity, and if you choose to do so then you never share it. This is for the best (also lie).

[iconuk01]

Banksy has confirmed that a new statue erected in London is his work and I think it might be one of my favourite pieces by him.

Called "Blinded by the Flag" it... actually, you don't need me to explain it, it's art, you'll get it and interpret it yourself.

It's in Waterloo Place, Central London, if you're nearby.

[matrixdragon]

The first photo had me nodding, and then the full shot nearly killed me laughing. Perfection!

[transgenderer]

the GPU is a tiny and simple minded wizard who can cast one spell very fast: linear algebra

[cheaphalloweencostume]

yesterday my grandma found a penny on the floor and said to my grandpa “there’s that penny again, pa!” and i absolutely lost my mind because i couldn’t shelve the thought of a single panel Far Side comic of two old people on the front porch in the middle of nowhere and a giant penny angrily and inexplicably rolling through the wastes

“there’s that penny again, pa!”

[secreteggplantbaby]

[cheaphalloweencostume]

this is hands down my single favorite post ive ever made that got notes

[avelera]

I’m a big fan of reenactment archaeology. I think there’s a lot to be said for recreating a scenario to better understand decisions made in generations past. Usually there’s an inherent logic to them.

Which is to say, that now that I have a baby of my own, I understand so much better the common cultural practice in which unmarried women wear their hair loose and uncovered, while married women have their hair covered and/or bound back.

I doubt it was just for modesty, oh no. No, my friends, I see now that the reason for this common practice of mothers binding back their hair is because there is nothing, I mean nothing, a baby love more than YANKING EVERY STRAND OF HAIR THAT COMES WITHIN GRABBING DISTANCE OF THEIR STICKY, SWEATY, AND IMPOSSIBLY STRONG LITTLE HANDS.

[mamawasatesttube]

the thing about media literacy is that understanding why the author chose to specify that the curtains are blue is the same skill set as understanding that the way the author characterizes all black characters as angry or all chinese characters as meek and silent is racist. it is the same skill set as being able to identify when a news source is biased or when someone is feeding you propaganda. the ability to ask "why did this person choose to present this premise in this specific way?" is a critical skill in a world full of misinformation. why are the curtains blue? maybe it's a characterization detail. maybe it's extraneous worldbuilding. why is this character written as being right all the time? maybe you're intended to disagree with them. maybe it doesn't matter. maybe you should still ask why.

[sabertoothwalrus]

aint it crazy how everyone is famous nowadays and yet I dont know who anyone is. there are countless people that will have more followers on instagram than the population of Sacramento and no one I know irl has ever heard of them

[bootsssss]

I had to go through several lifetimes to get them...

[thevulturesquadron]

text: [ “Some of you have forgotten that only three years ago you were perfectly capable of writing an essay, writing a eulogy, telling a bedtime story to a child, and it should worry you that powerful companies have convinced us we can’t do things we’ve been doing for 5000 years.” ]

[rudjedet]

And they're absolutely specifically pushing it, make no mistake. It's not just a matter of "it's there, it's convenient, so people are going to take the path of the least resistance", it is a legitimate and concerted effort on the part of these companies to get people to outsource all these things to their models.

They're preying on insecurities to do it. Yes, you can write an essay - but can you write a good essay, they ask you. Do you not want to improve your output? Do you not want people to think of you as competent and very clever? Why go through the mortifying process of failing and failing and failing until you succeed if you can just skip the "learning" part of doing, and simply generate a ready-made product?

I'm preaching to the choir here obviously but it's a concerning thing to witness nonetheless. My kid is 6 next week and I've been teaching her that failing at things is morally neutral and in fact necessary even before the advent of AI, but it's becoming ever more important that we teach the kids that criticism and failure and discomfort aren't necessarily bad things, but just a part of the growth process.

AI companies are heavily invested in making themselves relevant. They want people to believe they can't do the things they have done unaided before and to make them become reliant on the AI models, so the AI models' existence is artificially justified.

[toastyglow]

headstrong and foolhardy medieval king: never shall I bend the knee!!!

physical therapist: okay well if you keep lifting with your back you are just going to get hurt again your majesty

[partywithponies]

Daily affirmations:

At least I'm not in high school

At least I'm not a teenager

At least I'm not addicted to AI

At least I don't waste time and money on a daily 12 step skincare routine

At least I'm not American

[teaboot]

I feel like pirating media that isn’t sold or offered anywhere legally anymore shouldn’t be called piracy. Girl thats archaeology

[infiniteoreos]

undiagnosed autistic people will be like "I don't get upset when my routine changes though!!" and it's because they've built a set of if-then loops in their head to pick from one of 6 different strict routines and they do get incredibly upset when they're unable to keep to any of the 6 scripts. I'm john normal

[thundercrackfic]

This is called a fault tree. You will always know how to act if your fault tree captures all possible scenarios. In NASA Mission Control during mission critical events like landings there are huge binders with fault tree protocols, kind of like choose your own adventure books except you’re not the one making the choices, the universe is making them for you and you’re just trying to keep up.

The engineers who develop fault trees, I am told, often imagine new ways for their precious spacecraft to die (new branches on the fault trees) either while in the shower or lying awake at 3am, because human

[stxrfiish]

my proposed alternative for ‘there’s no platonic explanation for this’ is ‘there’s no normal explanation for this’. there are a number of different ways they might love each other but however they do they’re crazy as fuck about it

[aphelocoma-bird]

"walk": too leg centric

"roll": too 90s cool

"roll over": too spineless

"roll out" too optimus prime