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@mo-ons-stuff
A thunderstorm with heavy rain passes through New York City before sunset.
Because we don't teach history right.
We teach history like it's a work of fiction where the characters act the way they do because they were written that way. And not like the real world with real people who were just as human as us and had reasons to act the way they do. And that the same mistakes and foibles they had could happen to us too.
And even this history is woefully undertaught. People learn it to memorize the events of the story and then forget about it. They don't learn to comprehend it, they don't learn to learn from it.
This will be a long story, but settle in, because this is important.
I was fortunate enough to have some great teachers growing up, in a small, fairly well-funded school system (and during times when everyone still agreed that fascism was bad). In 8th grade, our school had an interdisciplinary unit for about a month focusing solely on the Holocaust. Every class taught something related to it, even math. For a month, we read horrifying stories and watched documentaries and did research assignments on the Holocaust. By the end, any one of us would have said we were experts on the subject.
And at the very end, our entire grade (about 100 kids) was broken into four groups, and we were told that as a reward for all our hard work on the Holocaust unit, we were going to compete for a trip to Disney World. Only one team could go, but the entire team would get to travel there and spend a few days in the park, all expenses paid.
The competition was simple: the group with the most team spirit would win. We were instructed to come up with a team name, a catchy slogan, and a logo (something simple and easy to draw). We were allowed to prove our team spirit however we wanted. That was it. That was all of the instructions. The competition would last a week, and short of stopping physical violence, the teachers stepped back and let us have at it.
It was terrifying.
At first, everyone just hung up posters in the halls and cheerfully recited their slogan whenever the teachers were watching. Within a few days, posters were being torn down and shredded. Verbal fights were breaking out in the hallways. It wasn't enough to say your team was the best, everyone had somehow decided. You also had to prove that everyone else's team was inferior. People started making up lies and gossip, saying that everyone in a particular group was lazy or ugly or smelly or what have you (we were 13). Slurs were thrown around. (Again, we were 13.)
By the final day, the groups were marching down the halls in formation, shouting their slogan in unison. Shouting slander against the other groups. The floor was covered in tattered paper.
I was shy and introverted and weird and unpopular and mostly stayed out of it. But those images are burned into my memory. These kids had turned into vicious monsters, all for a stupid school project.
The teachers had us march down the hallway to the auditorium to announce the results of the competition. The groups were little armies now. Most students marched in lockstep, shouting their slogans. We were seated together in our groups. The teachers dimmed the lights, quieted us down, and the teacher in charge of this whole project said that before he announced the winners, he had something to share with us about the person who was responsible for this entire competition. He turned on the projector and displayed a portrait of Hitler.
Everyone lost their minds. Kids were booing and throwing things. We knew that Hitler was a Bad Guy.
The teacher calmed us back down, and then explained that there was no trip to Disney World, and the fact that not one student questioned for a moment that such a massively expensive and complicated prize would be granted for such a silly competition was honestly kind of disappointing. This entire week, he said, was our final exam. The final exam for the Holocaust unit.
We had spent a month learning about this. About how this "bad guy" inspired a whole hell of a lot of people to march in lockstep shouting slogans and plastering their symbol all over everything. That one bad guy had told them that they were special, and other groups were trying to take away what was rightfully theirs for being the best, and they ultimately got extremely violent. We had learned all about the Hitler Youth and the SS and book burnings and, of course, the concentration camps. We'd all read the Diary of Anne Frank. We'd been marinating in this information for a month, in all of our classes.
But we hadn't learned. We hadn't really understood what they were trying to teach us. Not that this happened. But that this happens. It can happen very easily, especially if people aren't watching out for it.
The kids were furious. They shouted that this wasn't fair, that we were only following instructions. The teachers had lied to us. They had told us to do this, and now they were mad at us for following directions?
He was ready for this, of course. Calming us back down again, he pointed out that all they'd done is tell us to give ourselves a name, a slogan, a symbol, and demonstrate "team spirit." That was literally it. No one told us to rip posters down. No one told us to march in the hallways. No one told us to spread rumors and shout insults. No one told us to fight each other.
They didn't have to.
All it takes to get people to behave this way is to tell them that their group is special, they deserve good things, but the good things aren't there because those other people are taking them from you.
The Nazis were not uniquely evil people. They were just encouraged to demonstrate their team spirit. And there were no teachers to stop it from getting violent. Because the person encouraging them wanted things to get violent.
The Holocaust was not the story of Hitler the Bad Guy. He was there, and he was responsible for a lot, but that wasn't the point. Germany during the Holocaust wasn't suddenly, by total accident, full of evil people.
It was just full of people like us.
This time, it just was a lie about Disney World and a week of chaos. But if we didn't watch out, the next time fascism started to rise, we would get swept up on the wrong side of it. We had just proven that we would. We'd be too swept up in making sure that our special group got the prize they deserved to notice that we were being lied to about the prize in the first place.
That could happen. If we weren't careful. If we forgot the lesson we'd just learned.
After he'd let the horror and shame and embarrassment and indignation of that week sink in properly, he reassured us that it wasn't our fault. The point wasn't for us to prove that we understood the lesson of the Holocaust. It wasn't actually a test after all, it was our final lesson. The most important lesson.
He'd known that this test would go this way, because it always did. He did this every year. He said in all his years of teaching, only one student, one student, had ever questioned it. Pulled him aside in the hallway and said straightforwardly that whatever was going on was messed up and he wanted no part of it.
And you know what? That is how you teach history. You give students the facts of what happened. And then you show them how easily it can happen again.
Sadly, most schools don't have the resources for this sort of thing, and these days they'd probably not be allowed to run this little experiment. But I'm extremely grateful to that teacher, grateful that I was part of that experience. It was harrowing, and it made me and a lot of other people vigilant for the rest of my life in a way I know I would not have been otherwise.
It was over 35 years ago now and it still makes me emotional to think about.
Most people never got to have that experience, to properly learn that lesson. But at least I can pass the story on to you. And you can pass it on to others. Because if you think you would have acted differently, that you would have seen through the ruse, think again.
Teaching history requires such a broad high level picture of trends and an up close look at specific events and the ability to weave the two together that it’s no wonder we come up short.
I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone make this yet
Pick a Card: Your Love Life in 2025
Any card!
Pile one -> Pile two ↓ Pile Three
I actually can't stop thinking about how the losing party last election dressed like vikings and tried to break into the white house and the losing party this election are sharing suicide prevention hotlines
By the way, you can improve your executive function. You can literally build it like a muscle.
Yes, even if you're neurodivergent. I don't have ADHD, but it is allegedly a thing with ADHD as well. And I am autistic, and after a bunch of nerve damage (severe enough that I was basically housebound for 6 months), I had to completely rebuild my ability to get my brain to Do Things from what felt like nearly scratch.
This is specifically from ADDitude magazine, so written specifically for ADHD (and while focused in large part on kids, also definitely includes adults and adult activities):
Executive functioning skills range from working memory to cognitive flexibility to inhibitory control, and beyond. They power our daily func
Here's a link on this for autism (though as an editor wow did that title need an editor lol):
Practical Strategies for Enhancing Executive Functioning Difficulties in Adults With Autism - Living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) as
Resources on this aren't great because they're mainly aimed at neurotypical therapists or parents of neurdivergent children. There's worksheets you can do that help a lot too or thought work you can do to sort of build the neuro-infrastructure for tasks.
But a lot of the stuff is just like. fun. Pulling from both the first article and my own experience:
Play games or video games where you have to make a lot of decisions. Literally go make a ton of picrews or do online dress-up dolls if you like. It helped me.
Art, especially forms of art that require patience, planning ahead, or in contrast improvisation
Listening to longform storytelling without visuals, e.g. just listening regularly to audiobooks or narrative podcasts, etc.
Meditation
Martial arts
Sports in general
Board games like chess or Catan (I actually found a big list of what board games are good for building what executive functioning skills here)
Woodworking
Cooking
If you're bad at time management play games or video games with a bunch of timers
Things can be easier. You do not have to be stuck forever.
Dealing With Executive Dysfunction - A Masterpost
The “getting it done in an unconventional way” method.
The “it’s not cheating to do it the easy way” method.
The “fuck what you’re supposed to do” method.
The “get stuff done while you wait” method.
The “you don’t have to do everything at once” method.
The “it doesn’t have to be permanent to be helpful” method.
The “break the task into smaller steps” method.
The “treat yourself like a pet” method.
The “it doesn’t have to be all or nothing” method.
The “put on a persona” method.
The “act like you’re filming a tutorial” method.
The “you don’t have to do it perfectly” method.
The “wait for a trigger” method.
The “do it for your future self” method.
The “might as well” method.
The “when self discipline doesn’t cut it” method.
The “taking care of yourself to take care of your pet” method.
The “make it easy” method.
The “junebugging” method.
The “just show up” method.
The “accept when you need help” method.
The “make it into a game” method.
The “everything worth doing is worth doing poorly” method.
The “trick yourself” method.
The “break it into even smaller steps” method.
The “let go of should” method.
The “your body is an animal you have to take care of” method.
The “fork theory” method.
The “effectivity over aesthetics” method.
This is the sacred texts, this is the holy grail.
This a GOOD STUFF, people. Read and try, it may work for you 🤞
I guess I’m the only one who feels overwhelmed by this enormous list. Cool, cool.
Hey there, me collecting a bunch of resources that has helped a bunch of people but isn’t helpful to you personally (valid), is actually not a personal attack on you and you could easily just have scrolled past it and moved on with your day instead of getting guilt trippy in the tags. Just a tip for future reference!
I wish it was easier to talk about mobile phone addiction without sounding like a boomer
Phone addiction (specifically social media addiction) is real and it's not a joke and it is everywhere. Phone addiction literally reduces the grey matter of your brain. It's no secret young adults are more anxious and depressed than ever; more lonely than ever; more aimless than ever. Do you remember being a hugely creative kid, and feel like that spark is gone now? Can't sleep at night? Yeah, your GABA receptors are probably fucked from getting hits every 60 seconds from checking your phone. What's your daily screen time like? 6 hours? 12? These are common numbers. It's insane! It's insane and it's deliberate. Companies make more money from you when you're brain is fried from scrolling 10 hours a day through meaningless content.
But it can be reversed. Start small. If you hit this post then take 5 minutes to put your phone down in another room and do something. Do a crossword. Go for a walk. Be present! CBT is a hugely successful therapy for phone addiction and can even reverse the damage done to your brain.
I get it. I have dozens of beloved friends online, and I'm more informed now than I would ever have been without access to the Internet, but wouldn't it be nice to wonder sometimes? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to go outside and not itch for your phone screen? To have that creativity and confidence back? Start small. Start now.
with recent events i believe that jimmy "mr beast" youtube should be here
being punted into the sun is still probably safer than appearing on his tv show
what happened with Mr beast
If you want to get caught up on the Beast Games controversy (which is just one of the endless twisted shit he's being accused of right now):
(I'm going to be using "MrBeast" to mean the company, and "Jimmy" to refer to the man of the hour)
Jimmy has an upcoming Amazon show called Beast Games. If you haven't heard of it, it's described as Squid Game-esque, and is marketed as the biggest game show ever put together. There are 2,000 contestants (though it was originally advertised as 1,000, and the contestants weren't aware of the change), competing for a prize of $5 million, the largest game show prize in history. Contestants commit to 9 weeks of filming, with the first stage taking place in Las Vegas as a kind of qualifier.
Prospective contestants said they were asked if they were willing to die for MrBeast, if they would be buried alive, or be shot into space. The contract they signed also required them to say they are willing to die for Jimmy. A lot of them said they applied anyway because they desparately needed the money for a variety of personal reasons (like medical debt or student loans).
However, contestants have described the horrific conditions they were subjected to on set, having been treated like animals. Just to be clear, these are still allegations, and MrBeast has denied it as 'inaccurate'. But there is overwhelming confirmed evidence indicating that everything they have been accused of is 100% true.
Apparently the show starts with Jimmy appearing looking down at the contestants as a Jesus figure, surrounded by money, while the contestant's were told to scream praise at him "like he's god". He proceeds to watch the challenges from above, sitting on a throne like Nero.
The contestants were asked to give up their medications and inhalers to the production staff. Medical staff were worried as to what would happen, and allegedly secretly told contestants to hide their meds in their clothes and smuggle them onto set instead of allowing them to be taken away. When the game actually started, contestants who had given up their meds were denied them for days. Many of the meds were also lost by staff and never found. At least two had seizures because they were refused their epilepsy medication. It took several minutes for medical staff to reach them when it happened.
They also had to give up their clean underwear for some fucking reason, and many never got it given back during filming, or even after, because the staff apparently lost it.
Women were refused tampons and pads, and were bleeding through their clothes. They were told by staff that they didn't need them, because it "wasn't a medical emergency". The crew were seen laughing at the women begging for clean underwear. Contestants were also refused new contact lenses, and told they couldn't take out their old ones.
Contestants were also starved, with one saying he went 20 hours without being fed. The meals they did receive were almost nothing - one consisted of a miniscule amount of cold oatmeal, a few pieces of raw vegetables, and a hard-boiled egg. They were sometimes given Jimmy's shitty Feastable chocolate bars (you know, the ones that are also controversial because MrBeast lied about their nutritional content), so they could be filmed gushing over how incredible it was. One contestant described how her group would secretly collectively hoard the chocolate as supplies, because they had no idea when they would next be fed, if at all.
People with dietary requirements like allergies were especially fucked, because they were served the same thing as everyone else instead of replacement meals, so they just couldn't eat. A diabetic, after finally being given her insulin, long after she was meant to have it, was denied food she needed to take it. She was told she didn't genuinely need to eat. After a lot of groveling, she was given half a banana.
When other contestants went to staff to beg for food, medical care, or other help, they were refused it, and apparently some were screamed at or cursed out for having the nerve to even ask.
There was barely any water available, so in the Nevada heat sunstroke was almost universal. Contestants were vomiting or passing out, and some were said to be hospitalised from dehydration. Occasionally, gatorade was temporarily available for rehydration, but the staff didn't announce it (their microphones didn't work properly apparently), so most contestants only learned about it through word-of-mouth from their teammates. Within days, the gatorade ran out.
There were also sometimes brief windows where medical care was made available, but again, staff didn't actually inform anyone when this happened, with people only hearing about it through the grapevine.
Sleep deprivation was also a huge issue. Because the challenges took place at night, contestants had to sleep in broad daylight on the turf floor of the stadium in a cheap sleeping bag. They were only allowed to sleep for 3-4 hours at a time.
The male contestants realised they could get ahead by simply attacking the female contestants with no consequence. Female contestants were knocked out cold during the games, and dragged off by production staff. This wasn't just during the challenges either - food was so scarce that when meals were passed around, contestants would steal or fight over each other's food, and the male contestants would sometimes beat the female contestants and take their meals by force.
The teams were incredibly unbalanced. Although there were a wide array of contestants, all the challenges were physical. The young athletic male contestants formed their own groups, and wouldn't give team vests to women or elderly contestants, apparently physically ripping them off of them.
There was almost no medical staff, and only two ambulances for 2,000 people (plus crew). Horrific injuries are reported, the majority suffered by women, from beatings and tramplings. One thing we know to be true is that local hospitals began receiving Beast Games contestants with serious injuries, including broken bones.
One contestant described to the New York Times how she was elminated, leaving the tournament bruised and bleeding. She was offered on camera a $1,000 consolation prize, only for the staff to then turn off the cameras and immediately take the money back.
Eliminated contestants were offered $1,000 to sign an NDA. When an article about what happened came out, MrBeast called all the contestants and offered them another $1,000 in compensation, as well as free therapy.
MrBeast blamed the poor conditions on Crowdstrike (what?). They've said they'll conduct an internal, not independent, review, and use this as a learning experience for the next stage of the competition in Toronto. One of the actual reasons is that Jimmy actively sought out workers who were not part of a union, so they wouldn't be beholden to safety standards.
MrBeast has been blatantly trying to censor online criticism of Jimmy, and coverage of both this and the myriad of other controversies emerging over the past two weeks, on YouTube, Reddit and Twitter. Additionally, DogPack404, a former employee of MrBeast who released a video on him, received two cease-and-desist letters from law firms representing Jimmy, accusing him of personal defamation and breaking an NDA. YouTube has also been protecting their most popular and lucrative creator, demonetising, age-restricting and shadowbanning videos on him.
The fact that Jimmy is being accused of so much abominable shit that this isn't even the biggest controversy right now is fucking wild.
Just read through the NYT article and a LOT of this has been fact checked. As for the rest of the claims, I’d love to read cited sources. For anyone interested, there’s the article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/02/style/mrbeast-beast-games-competition-show.html
JK Rowling has done more damage to feminism than any other person in modern history and I'm not joking.
Because of people like her, women, regardless of birth gender, are expected to conform to impossible standards. No unique features are allowed, no strong noses, no square jaws, no hormonal conditions, no form of biological variety is allowed. All deviation from the delicate Victorian era white woman is forbidden. If you don't conform to these impossible standards, then they call you a man. The facts don't matter to them - all that matters is that they maintain their clique of rich old British bints with high school mean girl mindsets, neurotic victim complexes, and too much time and money on their hands. I'm not hyperbolizing when I say my boomer mother's era of feminism was way more progressive than whatever the fuck is going on right now. It's the polar opposite. JK Rowling and her cult of radfems took the feminist progress of the past seventy years out back, shot it in the head, and pissed on its corpse.
being anticapitalist with a strong work ethic is so fucking embarrassing like my managers don't deserve this
shaking my head while working overtime to clarify I disapprove of the situation
working full time is terrible why do we just accept that having 8 days off a month is normal and okay........ being alive could be cool but we waste it at our JOBS.... sorry i’m just heated about capitalism again i’ll be fine
not to be dramatic but the amount of people commenting on this post that I should stop whining and be grateful for having two days off a week when they only get one or none is...... literally proving my point that we’re all brainwashed ghfjhddjfk... thats like if someone cut off your arms and then only cut off one of mine, you focus on how much worse you have it instead of the fact that we’re still both fucking bleeding out
how to start reading again
from someone who was a voracious reader until high school and is now getting back into it in her twenties.
start with an old favourite. even though it felt a little silly, i re-read the harry potter series one christmas and it wiped away my worry that i wasn't capable of reading anymore. they are long books, but i was still able to get completely immersed and to read just as fast as i had years and years ago.
don't be afraid of "easier" books. before high school i was reading the french existentialists, but when getting back into reading, i picked up lucinda riley and sally rooney. not my favourite authors by far, but easier to read while not being totally terrible. i needed to remind myself that only choosing classics would not make me a better or smarter person. if a book requires a slower pace of reading to be understood, it's easier to just drop it, which is exactly what i wanted to avoid at first.
go for essays and short stories. no need to explain this one: the shorter the whole, the less daunting it is. i definitely avoided all books over 350 pages at first and stuck to essay collections until i suddenly devoured donna tartt's goldfinch.
remember it's okay not to finish. i was one of those people who finished every book they started, but not anymore! if i pick up a book at the library and after a few chapters realise i'd rather not read it, i just return it. (another good reason to use your local library! no money spent on books you might end up disliking.)
analyse — or don't. some people enjoy reading more when they take notes or really stop to think about the contents. for me, at first, it was more important to build the habit of reading, and the thought of analysing what i read felt daunting. once i let go of that expectation, i realised i naturally analyse and process what i read anyway.
read when you would usually use your phone. just as i did when i was a child, i try to read when eating, in the bathroom, on public transport, right before sleeping. i even read when i walk, because that's normally a time i stare at my screen anyway. those few pages you read when you brush your teeth and wait for a friend very quickly stack up.
finish the chapter. if you have time, try to finish the part you're reading before closing the book. usually i find i actually don't want to stop reading once i get to the end of a chapter — and if i do, it feels like a good place to pick up again later.
try different languages. i was quickly approaching a reading slump towards the end of my exchange year, until i realised i had only had access to books in english and that, despite my fluency, i was tired of the language. so as soon as i got back home i started picking up books in my native tongue, which made reading feel much easier and more fun again! after some nine months, i'm starting to read in english again without it feeling like a huge task.
forget what's popular. i thought social media would be a fun way to find interesting books to read, but i quickly grew frustrated after hating every single book i picked up on some influencer's recommendation. it's certainly more time-consuming to find new books on your own, but this way i don't despise every novel i pick up.
remember it isn't about quantity. the online book community's endless posts about reading 150 books each year or 6 books in a single day easily make us feel like we're slow, bad readers, but here's the thing: it does not matter at all how many books you read or what your reading pace is. we all lead different lives, just be proud of yourself for reading at all!
stop stressing about it. we all know why reading is important, and since the pandemic reading has become an even more popular hobby than it was before (which is wonderful!). however, there's no need to force yourself to be "a reader". pick up a book every now and then and keep reading if you enjoy it, but not reading regularly doesn't make you any less of a good person. i find the pressure to become "a person who reads" or to rediscover my inner bookworm only distances me from the very act of reading.
diet culture people make me feel like i’m going crazy. you want me to take an experimental pill that destroys my appetite?? you want me to remove part of my stomach??? you want me to stop eating bread and rice, two of the staple foods most inherent to humanity????? why exactly? because my stomach is big? because you don’t like the way i look, and you think it’s reasonable to tell me to carve pieces off of myself and try random drugs and ruin my own life so i can look more visually pleasing to you? and you somehow don’t see how absurdly cruel and selfish that is to ask of somebody???? while pretending you care about their HEALTH????????????????? FUCK YOU!!!!
anytime a woman starts talking about the “bonds of sisterhood that inherently exist between all women” you just know they bullied the weird girls in high school
The people confused about why this is: Because if they say “Bonds of sisterhood INSTINCTIVELY, INHERENTLY EXIST between ALL WOMEN” then if they *don’t* feel Sisterhood towards you (eg, you are the Weird Girl In High School) then you must have done something TERRIBLE to break that instinctive bond (All gift of fear shit “I don’t know why I don’t like her but I should trust my instinct!!”) so it’s morally right to abuse you, OR since they don’t feel that INSTINCTIVE BOND it must mean that you aren’t Really A Woman (Which… Guess how this plays out for racialised women and especially Black and dark skinned women, disabled women, trans women… etc)
Bonus points: White women using “Where’s your SISTERHOOD?!?!” when they perceive Black and other PoC women, or Nomadic and Traveller women, as “patriarchal” or “traitors” for often feeling more commonality with the men in their own family than with white women…