Welcome to Havoc's Home for Horrendous Takes!

Still mostly shitposts. I think. 

[the-grey-tribe]

I didn't want to make a post about Jason Arday, but I wanted to talk about something adjacent. Universities will usually drag their feet and not prosecute research misconduct or sloppy research methods once something has already been published, unless it is plagiarism.

If somebody published made-up experimental results, even if the results are misleading, dangerous, and were made up out of whole cloth, the threshold for a university to intervene is high.

If you're writing your thesis, your advisor may be as strict or as lenient about methods as he or she wants, but if you have a PhD, it takes a lot for the research integrity people at your university to step in, and even then, they often drag their feet, while the administration fights tooth and claw to keep the thing under wraps or end the investigation as fast as possible. If you are publishing a paper, the peer reviewers might be really tough and unreasonable on you, but once the paper is past peer review, it takes a lot to retract it.

You also see that in the reporting. About half of the reporting, at least here in REDACTED, says "He was just unfairly targeted for his plagiarism because he's black", while the other half says "Former professor Arday, 41, plagiarist, compulsive liar, and impostor found dead by authorities so you know he didn't fake that one, too."

About half the reporting acts af if everybody plagiarises, everybody fakes research, everybody lies on his CV, but these racists made a big deal out of it. That half also leaves out all the made-up stories about playing for Crystal Palace, his snooker career, or his marathons.

The thing is Cambridge did fight tooth and nail for Arday.

[the-grey-tribe]

Going through the notes on a popular post on the matter, I see all kinds of disformation. People shift back and forth between "Arday did nothing wrong and the media unfairly presented him as a fabulist and plagrariser" and "Well he did copy some passages from a thesis, but that doesn't warrant the media scrutiny" and "Well he did copy some passages from a thesis, and lied about his life, but the initial suspicion was motivated by racism, or they would have found plagiarism from a white guy."

Is that how you want to play it? The Lance Armstrong defence? Everybody plagiarises, it's just a matter of where you look, and who you investigate? They knew they would find something because everybody does it?

[cartoon-lizard]

[hbmmaster]

[cacopheny]

the older I get the more I relate to Bert

[riiisinghooope]

I'm also going to be obsessing over this workplace dynamic for the foreseeable future

[timeturner-jay]

I told my friend that tumblr would love her shirt, don't let me down guys

[scheidungsgrund]

from twitter user deejaygeejaygee

[galecstatic]

it just gets better

and better

[goingonanadventuremaybe]

[funnyfroge]

[homochadensistm]

American literacy went down bc they changed the way they taught kids how to read. IIRC instead of learning the alphabet and phonetics, they learn to *recognise words* in their entirety.

I looked into this and cross-compared various statistics, and apparently foreigners moving to america with english as a second, non-native language have a higher average english literacy rate than Americans whose native tongue is english

Girl i wish it was abt reading, ppl can't seem to understand themes or subtext or irony or literally anything that isnt the literal words theyre reading😭

[homochadensistm]

Actually u know what this specifically is so aggravating to me because I see ppl both online and irl talking abt how reading is Cool Again and how many books genz buys and muh booktok and what not, but when u look inside of these statements u discover that 99% of the books ppl r reading are either literal mom porn A Court of Cock and Balls or YA fanfic I read on ao3 when I was 12. Ppl r proudly stating they read like 20 books a month while openly admitting they only read dialogue portions of books and not the whole thing, in the same sentence hsbvdhwbsbhs

[fiachdubh]

It all really goes back to our education system that has been in decline since the 2000s at least, probably earlier.

[dailymoviemusicals-blog]

Moses Supposes

[randomslasher]

Running into this on my dash was like running into an old friend

[pyromanicdaydreamer]

Thats just what theater kids are like

[prokopetz]

What I’ve always loved about this bit is

a. this musical number comes completely out of nowhere, with no greater context than what this video captures; and

b. the language instructor clearly can’t hear the music. He’s not from Musical Theatre Land. From his perspective, a couple of twinkle-toed weirdos just randomly decided to physically abuse him for three solid minutes. This isn’t reading anything that’s not intended into the scene – it’s literally the central gag.

[rocketplane]

@thebibliosphere in case you need some ridiculous Singin’ in the Rain on your dash.

(P.S. I imagined you making the faces at the instructor and it was hilarious)

[thebibliosphere]

I can but aspire to the level of expressiveness Cosmo Brown has with his face.

[sharkselfies]

[johnny-depp-is-loved]

Wattpad wouldn’t survive the canonical porn without plot tag on AO3 😭 But in all seriousness this isn’t new. Wattpad has always been very pro censorship and a lot of authors have had their works removed with no warning before, so this looks to me like same old rules just even more strict than before? And don’t get me started on the ads that have been flooding the site for years, unless you subscribe to an ad-free Wattpad premium where you won’t get ads as long as you pay, but your works will still get removed if it’s too spicy or taboo and someone reports it. This is why we love AO3

[pastafossa]

For anyone who doesn't know, this is why AO3 was started. Pre-AO3, FFnet reigned supreme as the fanfic site. But calls for censorship grew, and eventually, in order to make the site more kid friendly (and advertiser friendly!), they changed the rules over what could be posted, leading to two infamous mass purges of fics. Some of those fics had been up for years, and had been posted long before the rule change, meaning the authors were gone or were given no warning. It also wasn't entirely clear what constituted 'adult' fics versus 'mature' ones. Some authors had fics taken down despite having no adult content in their fics, just bad language (which supposedly WAS allowed under mature fics). But hey, someone's bad language is another person's obscene, right? That's not counting all the other things FFNet decided to ban - from CYOA fics to songfics - or the Strikethrough/Boldthrough purges at Livejournal that hit fan communities in a similar way at around the same time.

This is what AO3 is designed to prevent.

This is what AO3 is here for.

You will never have to worry about middle of the night fic purges.

Censorship.

Purity culture cults and advertiser tantrums.

Your fic stays, until you yourself take it down.

As it should be.

[dozydawn]

[lew-basnight]

Look I know this is a scientific publication but you don’t understand— we need to include milk and cookies in the photo. We have to. Otherwise the science suffers

[cheerfullycatholic]

When medicine is holding the migraine back but you can still kinda feel it in the distance waiting to return

[wertfi-penguin]

Maybe the most damming thing about Nolans odyssey is i haven’t seen a single gifset from it

[geekyhistoriansunite]

[cookingwithroxy]

You might even say Nobody's made a gifset of it yet.

[homunculus-argument]

oddly specific insults that could also be used as compliments?

Just describe them. The tone of your voice dictates which one it is. You could tell someone that they walk like a sled dog and that's going to delight or bother them for the rest of their life.

[the-duct-tape-wizard]

“I hope you have the day you deserve” can be a good one

[homunculus-argument]

There was an incident on reddit where someone replied to a rancind OP with "if you ever end up in a state of needing help, I hope people show you as much kindness and patience as you have for others", and got immediately banned for "threats of violence".

[saintofpride201]

Similar to that, someone told JK Rowling that they wish the same kindness and peace on her that she wishes for trans people, and they were harassed by terfs bc "you just said you wish her to die".

[el-ffej]

[kob131]

I was wondering why my city was looking empty.

[lucca-vendramel]

the cage, with human soul and parts

[generallemarc]

@lucca-vendramel This is beautiful and I'm going to use every possible relevant tag to try and get more than just me and vivi to be in the notes-it deserves way more eyes on it. Absolute 11/11.

[uptownthots]

white people will literally be like if u arent nice to me Im going to become a nazi. and think they’re making a great argument

[uptownthots]

this stupid shit has been around for so long and it’s crazy to me there are still people with enough rocks in their brain to believe it. “Oughhhhh if you aren’t nice to you oppressors they’ll become bigots instead of allies” if someone’s support for marginalized groups hinges entirely on whether or not that group is niceys, they’re by definition not effective or useful allies and, by admission of this argument, an active danger to the communities theyre supposed to be allied with because they can Enter Bigot Mode the second they become displease

[feotakahari]

I mean, isn’t that the point of the argument? Supposedly, you mollify the active dangers so they won’t be dangerous immediately. I’m not convinced it actually works, but that’s the logic.

It’s funny how Republicans used to claim Democrats claimed it was necessary to mollify brown people to keep them from being a threat, and meanwhile Democrats said that about white people, not brown people.

[self-winding]

A committed bigot is probably not going to be swayed by progressives being nice to them and asking them politely to stop being bigots, but the world is not divided neatly into committed bigots and allies. There are also a whole lot of people who just kind of exist on the sidelines and are focused on other stuff, but they can be activated in either direction by circumstances and the way that people treat them.

Say you've got a generally apolitical person who mainly tries to avoid the whole woke/anti-woke struggle. In one timeline, that person is mocked and shamed by progressives and becomes a right-winger. In another timeline, that person is mocked and shamed by right-wingers and becomes a progressive. In both cases the motive is somewhere between spite and wanting to shape the world into a place where they can exist free of mockery and shame.

"This group harmed me so I am going to become a problem for them" is an incredibly common motivator in politics.

[throwitonthepilethesecond]

another one: A "X is a human right" B "I like X" A "X can be withheld at will from people I don't like/that disagree with my claims about X, but X is still a human right" B "I cannot trust A's statements even if I like X and A thinks they are working towards X"

[hamstergetten]

Pointing out some white people might react to racial abuse by eventually giving in and becoming racist, Nazi etc, etc, is not the same as someone saying all white people will or THEY will.

[hellfudge1989]

"i hate all radfems" and "i only like feminism when it caters to cis men" are interchangable.

[itscoldinwonderland]

Anyway I hate all radfems!!! Reblog if you hate all radfems!!!

[gardenvarietydegenerate]

Feminism is cancer.

[hellfudge1989]

Youre a fucking moron and i hope you get shot

[gardenvarietydegenerate]

Your boo's mean nothing, for I've seen what makes you cheer.

[aorish-deactivated20251222]

Recent discourse reminds me of that cult indoctrination trick that's often used to weed out more difficult marks early on, where they tell you all that you aren't allowed to eat rice on Tuesdays and then if you protest they go "wow SOMEBODY likes rice a little much huh" as if you're the fucking weirdo who cares too much about how much rice is consumed between Monday and Wednesday instead of them.

And this forces you to decide whether your autonomy matters to you more than the approval of the group - while they'll still act like you're on thin ice either way, if you give in at this point they know you're theirs forever, because now they've established a foothold, you've shown a moral weakness, which they will brand you with so it can be used against you in the future ("hey RICE-addict here doesn't want help break into the city records office") to force you to double-down and isolate you further.

And if instead you do decide to push back further, after your abrupt departure from the group ("You're seriously leaving us over RICE?!? Seriously?") and subsequent ostracism, you can then be used as a demonstration to the others who were more pliable, of how the outgroup is full of people like you who are obsessed with violating the No-Tuesday-Rice rule to the point where they'll abandon all their friends, who cared so much for them, so it clearly isn't an arbitrary restriction, you're the kind of monster these rules are intended to protect them from, thus all the other wise and esoteric precepts of the charismatic leader are implied to be equally justified.

[doomhamster]

This isn't just for cults either! Shitty partners, bosses, friends - they all do variants of this where if you kick back the first time they make an unreasonable request, it proves you weren't ever committed since you'd let such a small thing ruin everything. And of course, if it's the third or the tenth unreasonable thing they ask of you, it's SUCH A SMALL THING to be a deal-breaker at this late point in your relationship!

[rohirric-hunter]

People get really mad if they ask you why you're pushing back on a certian point because, "It's not a big deal," and you say, "If you think it's not a big deal then you should have no problem doing it my way." This reply hasn't ever gotten me anywhere reasonable with these people but it HAS made people take the mask off and blow up at me over something small