Nola.Bird @nolabird - Tumblr Blog

Boulder covered in ferns

You're simply never going to convince me that the people who learned how to analyze, think critically, and build up skill sets so they could become genuinely informed and competent in a field and accomplish tasks independently aren't better off than the people who use generative AI as a crutch and replacement for doing anything by themselves. There's not a world where knowledge and skills are a disadvantage, so no, people really don't need to "learn how to use ChatGPT or else they'll get left behind." That's just a marketing tactic to get people to use this product sooner.

omegasmileyface

The ruling will have enormous impacts for transgender residents in the state.

HOLY SHIT

definite-human

"The Montana court separately declared that transgender people constitute a suspect class under the state's equal protection clause. In legal terms, a suspect class is a group that has historically faced such severe discrimination that any law targeting them must meet the highest level of judicial scrutiny to survive—the same standard applied to laws that discriminate on the basis of race. [...] The practical effect is sweeping: any Montana law that singles out transgender people will now face strict scrutiny, meaning the state must prove the law serves a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve it—a standard that laws almost never survive.

"Because the decision rests entirely on the Montana Constitution, it is insulated from the U.S. Supreme Court. Under the principle of adequate and independent state grounds, the federal Supreme Court cannot review a state court's interpretation of its own constitution, so long as that constitution provides more protection than the federal one. [...] What this means in practice is that Montana's transgender residents now have a constitutional shield completely independent of the Supreme Court of the United State’s decisions."

(emphases mine)

biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist

they seriously expected us to worship cops & soldiers when street cleaners and sanitation workers exist? fuck off i know who my heroes are

aestum

Overseer (by Marie and Alistair Knock)

jorth

clair-audients

despazito

I don't have time for tumblr discourse they're calling the very hungry caterpillar degenerate art over on twitter

despazito

good art is when something looks like real life, the more real it looks the more better the art. abstracted figures give my trad children nightmares, one time they were exposed to cubism and couldn't go outside for a week

josephbrassey

“Haha remember when murder-hornets were gonna be a thing? What a nothingburger.”

Yes, because the Washington state government activated like a sleeper-cell and ruthlessly, systematically hunted them down and annihilated them.

“Y2K came to nothing amirite?”

Yes because an army of software engineers working around the clock, losing sleep, and busting ass till the last minute prevented it from happening.

“Remember the hole in the ozone layer?”

You mean the one that was fixed through rigorous world wide government action?

One of the root problems of our society is a refusal or inability by media to articulate that all those “it’s gonna be an apocalypse” disasters were not disasters because we collectively did something about them.

The good news is this is actually quite correctable. I maintain my firm belief that we as humans are capable of solving almost all of our problems, when we decide to do so.

And I still think that’s going to happen. I don’t know when or how, but I do know that abandoning hope won’t help bring it about.

And I refuse to let the cynics own a chunk of my heart.

gudamor

Happy Smallpox Eradication Day

academic-vampire

𝔴𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔴𝔬𝔫’𝔱 𝔩𝔞𝔰𝔱 𝔣𝔬𝔯𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔯

leebrontide

I keep seeing posts claiming that x y or z action you can do to build a better world won’t matter. That capitalism doesn’t care, and your own actions dont amount to much.

It’s so painfully individualistic. Of course me doing that thing isn’t going to save anybody or anything.

Im not trying to be a superhero who personally saves the say.

I am one leaf making oxygen in a massive forest of other trees making oxygen. I am doing my best and having faith that millions of others will do their best as well.

Because that can and has made big changes over time. Like. That is just how change happens. Thats cultural shifts. Thats political shifts. Thats how lasting changes happen.

I don’t plant milkweed because I’m personally gonna save monarch butterflies. I plant milkweed because I know thousands of us are gonna plant milkweed and send money to the people fighting horrible pesticides in court.

The standard for change isn’t “is my doing this going to change the world?” The standard is “is my doing this part of the shift I want to see my community make?” And if the answer is yes, I do my best.

susiephone

"My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?" — Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

theeminentlyimpractical

"Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world."

"And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory." – The Optimism of Uncertainty, Howard Zinn