Psychic Space Squid

I needed a place to put my essays. 28, they/he.

[queer-as-city-folk]

When would you consider "modern history" to start:

1900 - turn of the century

1905 - end of the Russo Japanese War

1914 - start of WW1

1918 - end of WW1

1922 - establishment of the USSR

1929 - Great Depression

1936 - ~Start of WW2

1945 - End of WW2

1953 - Suez Crisis

1963 - Assassination of JFK

1969 - Moon Landing

Voting ended onFeb 26

Yes this is a US centric list of events, but I can't choose a lot of options and the US has outsized influence as a nation

[psychicspacesquid]

I'd argue that if we take modernism as a philosophical term we could argue for Descartes being the start of modern history. Historiographically, I think the invention of the nation state is a good candidate, putting the start of modern history sometime around the American and French revolutions.

In either case, this range is far too late. There's no way that the 19th century (or even early 20th???) is "pre-modern".

[bogleech]

We don't talk enough about America's permanent ongoing saturation of "Stranger Danger" hysteria. It's like this country's whole social ecosystem teaches full grown adults to perceive an invisible army of rabid bogeymen lurking around every fucking corner. And it's everywhere. Absolutely fucking everywhere, top to bottom, from true crime media and urban legends like the old Poison Halloween Candy thing to our sadistically rage-fueled, revenge-based justice system and immigration policies. The NRA and the war on drugs and post 9/11 airport security and mccarthyism and satanic panic and just E V E R Y T H I N G in America, everything that has defined its history for 100+ years is constantly nothing but this fucking FEAR TERROR FEAR TERROR for positively no reason. None.

[psychicspacesquid]

Drawing a diagram in my head between this, alienation under capitalism, and the breakdown of the social contract.

[psychicspacesquid]

D66 met de stalen stoel????

[cryptotheism]

a youtuber i watched recently made an off-hand comment complaining about the fact that so many conspiracies these days are in some way connected to christian beliefs when the "movement" used to be atheist, would you say that its true that theres been this change?

I wouldn't say atheist but definitely more secular. But even that is qualified. Conspiracy culture has always been intertwined with biblical mythology, (nephilim, angels, pyramids, etc) thus there was always overlap with fringe Christian groups. Like, it was definitely possible to participate in conspiracy culture as a secular atheist, and have that be unremarked upon. And while I guess you can still do that, the culture has been overwhelmingly captured by evangelical messianism.

[psychicspacesquid]

Both types have definitely been around - a lot of conspiracies have traditionally involved satanists who work under a literal, spiritual Satan, but there has also been a strong movement that was either secular (the government is out to get us, no Satan necessary) or even tried to reframe religious phenomena as something else, think Ancient Astronaut people believing that the Abrahamic god and biblical angels are aliens.

However, at this point the explicitly Christian branch is definitely far, far more prominent - even the ancient astronaut people nowadays usually consider stuff like biblical giants as alien hybrids or whatever they're on as confirmation of biblical narrative rather than a secular reframing of religious ideas. Even if a current day conspiracy narrative is secular on the surface, it's usually some form of "cosmic battle between good and evil leading up to an imminent Final Day" which is really just Evangelical eschatology with the serial numbers (sloppily) filed off.

[cyle]

Kohler unveils a camera for your toilet | TechCrunch

Home goods company Kohler recently unveiled a new device called the Dekoda — a $599 camera that can be attached to your toilet bowl and take

truly entering a cursed age

[cyle]

a fingerprint sensor to identify who’s using the toilet

i just gagged

customers will need to pay between $70 and $156 for a subscription

subscribe to my poop

It also notes that the resulting data is secured via end-to-end encryption.

this should not alleviate anyone’s concerns about privacy. it just means nobody can snoop on your poop when the picture is sent from the camera up to a server. it does not mean that the pics of your poop are encrypted on device or on the server they end up on. some people are definitely gonna be looking at your poop and there’s definitely going to be a data breach of poop pics.

[psychicspacesquid]

Why in the hell would I want a $600 electronic in my toilet that's also bound to be at best difficult if not impossible to clean.

[cryptotheism]

I don't know if you guys are aware but theology is very hard to understand

[quasi-normalcy]

Mathematics is also hard to understand. Maybe they're the same thing?

[cryptotheism]

Someone should look into this

[psychicspacesquid]

Well, I understand a different hard thing, so theology should be a piece of cake in comparison. I bet those theologians don't know what they're talking about and I could figure out theology in an afternoon.

[psychicspacesquid]

I want to congratulate the US on finally achieving communism, and long live the immortal science of Marxism-Trumpism.

[cryptotheism]

how does charlie kirk day make you feel?

Doin all this shit as if most Americans aren't gonna forget this even happened in like 2 weeks

[cryptotheism]

Ezra Klein half paying attention to a Hulu original sitcom playing on a TV across the room, googling "Charlie Kirk" and barely skimming the wikipedia: "he was a great American who practiced politics the right way. He wasn't? Well I stand by what I said or whatever."

[psychicspacesquid]

Seriously, neither my parents nor my parents in law, who range from "pretty politically literate" to "local politics is his literal job" knew who he was before he died. And they wanted a minute of silence for the guy in the European parliament? In addition to the laundering of his views there's also an active attempt to make Kirk more significant than he was.

[trzpiotka]

in fact i'd like to know less about the US

[psychicspacesquid]

I'm going to be honest, I don't think Charlie Kirk was important enough for his killing to be considered an assassination

[psychicspacesquid]

The reason the public debate about guns in the US is so weird but fascinating for people outside of the US is that basically every opinion within the debate is outside of the Overton window in other countries. Like American opinions range from "you are an active danger to yourself and others, that is insane" to "damn bitch, you have to live like this???"

[psychicspacesquid]

This is what we call a diva down moment 💅

[macbethz]

Guys all the science says polyamorous people are “normal” and “just like us” instead of sick freaks please help me to instead find science that justifies my beliefs :(

[hippy-craic]

it's the mounting conservatism & fascism

[psychicspacesquid]

Seriously. It's the way conservatism demands relationships to be between a Man™ and a Woman™ where the woman is subservient to her husband, it's the fascism that thrives on that hierarchy and other similar hierarchies, it's the way the nuclear family is a 20th century construct that alienates people to make them better consumers. Polyamorous relationships show that it doesn't have to be this way, that there are other ways of being, other family structures, other dynamics between the people in a relationship. Deviance is not just not tolerated under fascism because there needs to be a deviant enemy; people can under no circumstance be allowed to think that there are alternative ways the world can be, because imagining a different world - not even necessarily a better world, just a different one - is the first step to resisting the powers that be now.

Not to be "marriage is an institution to keep women down" but conservatives and fascists believe it is and should be. Queer relationships, including poly relationships, are examples that show that there are different (and often healthier) ways to build a relationship.

[psychicspacesquid]

I'm on my knees begging Hollywood to cast actors who aren't extremely narrowly conventionally attractive; the range of facial features on my screen has become so small I can't tell any actors apart.

[psychicspacesquid]

Plus everyone gets the exact same plastic surgery now. Please stop physically giving people the same face I feel like I'm developing prosopagnosia.

[psychicspacesquid]

I'm on my knees begging Hollywood to cast actors who aren't extremely narrowly conventionally attractive; the range of facial features on my screen has become so small I can't tell any actors apart.

[psychicspacesquid]

Gacha gamers be like "this gameplay is fire!!!"

[polari]

everyone in the world is either a democrat or a republican. everyone in the whole wide world is a democrat and a republican and america is the largest and most populous country in the world and america is easily the most culturally diverse country in the world because the middle class white people in my state (like a little country) are very different than the middle class white people over there (another little country, once more called a "state") and you could never understand how bad it is in america, the main country in the world. where are you from again? it's bad in america and america is bad but the way that america is run is the only way a country could possibly be run unfortunately. i don't like it but it's the only right way for a country to be run and you don't get it because the main victims of the main country are all here and you aren't. where are you from again? they never told me about that place. i don't think you get that real people live in america. probably because you're a republican. real people live in america and real people are hurt by america but what can you do? god said america has to be like this. god said this because god is real so god is american. you don't get it because you're over there and we're all here in america, the realest country in the world. where are you from again? how can you talk like this with what's happening in america? you're a democrat, right? where are you from again? my country is so large it stretches over yours and presses down hard. it's not my fault that they never told me about that place. my country covers the world. you don't understand how bad this will be for real people in the real world, the first world, the only world. they never told me—where in america are you from again?