"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
$LAYYYTER
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Product Placement
YOU ARE THE REASON
Today's Document
trying on a metaphor
cherry valley forever
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Xuebing Du
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@referencesaint
hey what's up i'm just rebloggin stuff here to look at later in case i neeeeeeeeeed it or sth. idk if any of this is right or true or any of that it's just info that i might remember in a flash at 4am and might like to look into more. ok be well may your health only improve support your neighbors ACAB thank you bye <3
Etude de la Plante: Son application aux industries d'art by M.P. Verneuil was published in 1903 and is an incredible resource for botanical art. In it, Verneuil combines incredibly detailed, technical drawings of plants and then breaks down how they can be simplified and abstracted for use in decorative art. Here are some examples using irises, where you can see he even provided ideas for specific forms of decorative art, such as mosaics, stained glass, and wallpaper:
It's all in French, but the visuals are extremely good and the whole thing is digitized on the bibliothèque nationale de France website.
Semi-Slugs: these are actual gastropods that are in the process of evolving from snails into slugs, with their shells gradually reducing and receding into their bodies
Above: Fastosarion brazieri, commonly known as the chameleon semi-slug, and an unidentified species of semi-slug from the genus Sheldonia
The term "semi-slug" is used to describe an intermediate stage of evolution as snails evolve into slugs. Nearly 1,000 different species of semi-slugs are known to exist, and these bizarre little creatures can be found on at least four continents.
Above: Fastosarion brazieri and Varadia amboliensis
Each species of semi-slug is technically still classified as a snail, but its shell is noticeably reduced, becoming more internalized as the species evolves. A semi-slug officially becomes a regular-slug once its shell is no longer visible at all.
As this article explains:
If life were simple, there would be snails and slugs. Snails carry their homes on their backs; slugs are naked and embarrassed. But life isnât simple, so of course thereâs secret option #3 â the semi-slug, a bizarre creature that sits exactly between the snail and the slug.
Above: genus Satiella and genus Euaustenia
This article also adds:
In contrast to snails that have an external shell large enough to accommodate the body, or slugs in which the shell is completely internal or absent, semi-slugs have an external shell, but the shell is too small to accommodate the animalâs entire body.
Above: Megaustenia siamensis
This process is known as limacization, and it's especially common in moist, low-calcium environments where a snail's shell may be more of a burden than a benefit:
Terrestrial slugs are not a monophyletic group, but a case of convergent evolution in which the slug form evolved from different lineages of land snails that gradually lost their shell through a process called limacization. Limacization resulted in adaptive radiation in land snail lineages, as slugs became adapted to diverse moist and protected spaces, such as crevices in rocks and wood debris. The loss of the shell also allowed for more movement and less calcium dependence, making slugs more successful as pests.
Above: Gaeotis nigrolineata, also known as the Puerto Rican semi-slug, has a neon green shell that is almost completely internalized, but the shell is clearly visible through the semi-slug's translucent body
Some semi-slugs have shells that are still opaque and largely visible, with the mantle (a patch of flesh) covering only the outer edges of the shell, while others have shells that are more significantly reduced, transparent, and/or concealed.
Above: Ibycus rachelae, commonly known as the green-shelled semi-slug, and a species of semi-slug from the genus Durgella
This topic was mentioned in my previous post about Ibycus rachelae, but I wanted to write a more detailed post about semi-slugs, because they're just so fascinating and weird.
Above: a black-and-white semi-slug from subfamily Sheldoniinae
Sources & More Info:
Australian Geographic: Meet the Semi-Slug, a Snail without a Home
Carnegie Museum of Natural History: What's So Good about Being a Slug?
Frontiers: Terrestrial Slugs in Neotropical Agroecosystems (PDF)
iNaturalist: Photos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, & 13
The Shell-Makers (Introducing Molluscs): On Becoming Sluggish
Land Snails and Slugs of Sabah and Labuan, Malaysia: Semi-Slugs
Contributions to Zoology: Phylogeny and Systematic Revision of the Helicarionid Semislugs of Eastern Queensland
I am so damn pleased with the Sedgwick County Zoo media team, yâall. They just dropped a stellar blog piece on why GenAI slop videos of animals are such a problem - and how to identify them!
If you spend any time on social media, youâve probably seen them â bears bouncing on trampolines, apes caught on doorbell cameras, or ârescu
This is the first time Iâve ever seen a zoo or aquarium in the United States speak up broadly about AI. (The only times I can think of any comment at all has maybe individual instances when a deepfake of âtheirâ animal escaping is circulating.) And they did a great job with this piece! Itâs succinct, easy to read, and written in a way that doesnât shame people for engaging with AI content before they knew better.
I think this is exactly the type of resource needed for sending to that family member or friend we all have - the one who isnât aware of the slop issue and constantly sends you clearly fake videos because theyâre âso cute.â
Iâd love to have Sedgwick get some public positive reinforcement for taking this stance. If youâre so inclined, a comment on their FB post would be great as itâs likely theyâre going to get shit for this from sloppers & co. We really do need animal organizations to stand up for accurate, real animal content and this is a great first step in that direction.
Just watched Adam Conover (of Adam Ruins Everything) make such a solid point that I think we should spread far and wide. Yes, having AI write your emails is lazy, sure, but people love being lazy. We need to really emphasize that sending AI emails (or using AI responses on social media, or publishing AI flyers, or or or) is rude.
It's rude. You're making someone take their time to read something you couldn't bother to write. You're telling them they were so unimportant you couldn't be bothered to actually take the time to say something yourself. And frankly, you're lying about it while you're at it.
It's rude.
Swarovski can continue to fuck off.
In 2021, Swarovski (the company that makes the very sparkly crystals you see in certain jewelry, on figure-skaters' twinkliest outfits, on red carpet dresses), decided they didn't want the grubby fingers of small-time jewelers, clothing designers and costumers and crafters on their shiny beads and rhinestones anymore. They decided to limit their sales to "luxury" and couture creators, not girls who sell stuff on Etsy. The tenor of their press release on the subject was snide and insulting. Resellers (like your favorite bead shop) would no longer be allowed to carry their product; the average Jane on the street would not be able to purchase them. You could only get them if you had an authorized business agreement that bound you to very strict brand behavior. And those of us who still had good stock of the crystals would no longer be "permitted" to use the brand's name in our listings for sale.
Every bead shop and craft supply place and many, many small clothing makers--wedding shops, prom and dancing dress suppliers, the sort of salt of the Earth mom and pop time machines of shops that are the backbone of the field--scrambled to find something that could replace them. The last of the stock dwindled quickly, all of us grabbing what we could get while there was any chance of it, and then it was gone and we no longer had any access.
I was Big Pissed about it at the time. It was just so goddamn stuck-up, when wholesalers and indie jewelers had made them so much money, when some people I knew--when *I!*--had been brand-loyal for decades. But with no recourse, everyone pivoted fairly quickly, most of us to Preciosa Crystals. Those are Czech, quite sparkly, and considerably less expensive than Swarovski. The faceting method they use is different, but not worse; any differences are hardly noticeable when you're seeing them as a hundred pinpoints of light.
Well, out of nowhere, Swarovski just dropped this: https://www.harmanbeads.com/swarovski-brand-policy-update
"Effective June 1, 2026, Swarovski updated the distribution and brand usage policies introduced in 2021. Businesses may now purchase Swarovski Crystals without signing a Brand Control Agreement, and Authorized Distribution Partners may once again sell Swarovski Crystals to resellers, including bead stores and online retailers. Businesses may also use the Swarovski brand name when following Swarovskiâs Proper Use Guidelines. Designers, manufacturers, artists, brands, retailers, and resellers are now eligible to purchase Swarovski Crystals through authorized distribution channels."
They want us back. A lot of the companies who could have kept a brand relationship with them also have swapped to Preciosa, over the last half-decade, in solidarity with indie creators and out of a sour awareness that it could be them, next. And it doesn't hurt that Preciosa was able to expand their line quite a bit now that everyone who wanted sparkle had no choice but to go to them.
And I'm not seeing nearly anyone who intends to return. The feeling is, "Y'all told us to fuck off! Off we fucked! And now, that's what you can do, too!" I'm seeing a lot of "How many of us did you stab in the back?" comments from the people whose money they're hoping to attract.
And personally I'm sitting over here all rubby hands, mean snickering, because they really thought they were going to be able to outclimb the people who actually provided all their profits, and now here they are, hat in hand.
Okay,I just want to share the super cool fucking site I found
Ever wanted to exercise more, but didnât know how/didnât have a plan/were overwhelmed by the insane number of choices online/no money?
Look at darebee. All of their workout plans are FREE, come with timers and checkboxes right on the page, and even better, ARE OFTEN RPG THEMED so you can fucking role play while you exercise wtff (and yes, the story and the workout changes with your choices)
They have programs for if you only want to do seated exercises, programs if you donât want to get on the floor, and programs for ALL levels of fitness, including injury recovery.
Plus, if like me, you get anxious about making sure youâre doing it right, they have a full free library of videos for each exercise.
AND ALL THIS SHIT IS NOT JUSTS FREE, IT'S AD-FREE
Go forth and defeat your enemies
follow-up to the last post: if you are looking for a specific book and are in the united states, check worldcat. It has access to the catalogues of every public, university, and special library that belongs to OCLC (which is just about everyone), and will tell you where you can find the book (this includes digitally, such as through hathitrust and internet archive). And even if the thing you're looking for is far away, being a member of OCLC means they probably participate in inter-library loans, so you can request the book through your local library.
please use worldcat. it's wonderful. tell everyone you know
Vietnam bans unskippable ads
I hope this is true.
Online advertising will face tighter controls from February 15, 2026, with new rules requiring video ads to be skippable after five seconds
One country is passing new rules that limit platforms like YouTube from running unskippable ads longer than five seconds!
I thought you may also want to spread word around about âSgt. Abe, the Honest Recruiterâ which breaks down enlistment forms and shows the part where the military says they donât have to follow through what they promised you:
https://quakerhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/QH_SgtAbeApr2015.pdf
&
https://nebraskagreens.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Sgt_Abe_The_Honest_Recruiter.pdf
Happy Counter-Recruiting! Remember: if you save just one life, itâs all worth it! You may never know who you reach.
Excellent resource, thank you!!
Iâm so angry that itâs legal (and considered good/necessary) for parents to send their kid off to residential treatment facilities against their will.
Like⌠I met someone at my time there who was actually kidnapped in the middle of the night with no warning and shipped across the country in handcuffs to get âtreatmentâ because his parents were âworried heâd run awayâ if they told him they were planning on sending him to a residential facility.
And then of course he was in danger of being labeled âviolentâ and ânoncooperativeâ for resisting being taken out of his home by strangers in the middle of the night with no warning. (Both labels often lead to further restrictions on your rights/further abuse in psychiatric settings).
Even if you ignore how rife with abuse the rest of the psychiatric industry is, the ability to have someone legally kidnap someone because youâre their parent, and then not let them go home until you decide theyâve satisfied some arbitrary standard is not even remotely ok. Especially considering the number of times Iâve seen parents threaten to send their kid(s) to a mental health facility, it feels like itâs yet another way parents can abuse their kid(s) without anyone caring.
Anyways Iâm running out of coherent thoughts that arenât just me being filled with rage, but youth liberation đ¤ anti-psychiatry
I definitely think that one of the biggest threats to minors well-being is that they are legally at the mercy of their parents and other adult authority figures in their lives, and that they do not have the right to decide that they don't want to live with them, or stay in whatever situation their parents decide to place them in. Forced residential treatment and the troubled teen industry are among the most extreme examples, but the world would be a lot safer for all children if they had a reinforceable legal right to say "I don't want to live with my parents/spend time with that person/go to that place"
Apparently someone got their car stuck on the light rail tracks at Mt. Baker. For those unfamiliar this is 35 feet up in the air
Fun fact! this is likely due to racism. Not the drivers, to be clear, but this is a not-entirely-unsurprising result of systemic racism in the greater Seattle area and the influence it has on infrastructure spending.
I'm a huge proponent of public transit, rail in specific, and I'm very glad that the greater Seattle area is finally starting to see some solid light rail infrastructure sprouting up in the form of the 1 and 2 lines, but that in no way stops me from critiquing the decisions made in planning and implementation.
Light Rail, in it's colloquial form here in the US, is basically always a compromise solution. It's cheaper than subways, can make good use of existing right-of-way around freeways, and can function as a kind of low-capacity commuter rail in the subways while behaving more like a tram or streetcar in downtown areas. It is crucially, however, not a streetcar, nor is it a commuter rail. Streetcars make frequent stops and are optimized for dense areas with lots of traffic. Commuter rails are larger and stop lest frequently, optimized for bringing suburban residents into city centers. Commuter rail should, however, be independent of street traffic so it can travel at higher speeds. For this reason, most of the Link light rail system in seattle is actually not at-grade (street level), but on either elevated or sub-grade track. Downtown, the lightrail actually functions as a low-capacity low-frequency subway system in what used to be the bus tunnel (we don't have time, but yes it was stupid). Everywhere else, it's up on elevated tracks that largely follow the freeway system.
There are three stations, all immediately south of that Mount Baker elevated station, where the Link actually runs at-grade. These stations run through the historic low income immigrant neighborhoods of southeast seattle. Here, the trains are forced to stop at red lights, interact with crossing and left-turning traffic, and even cross through terrifyingly narrow pedestrian islands. They could have built elevated track here, as they did everywhere else, but they didn't. they didn't want to spend the money. I have personally watched light rail cars carrying hundreds of people have to wait two full minutes for cars turning left in front of them, delaying trains so like, 5 people could drive there. Once it reaches the end of this low income immigrant-dominant neighborhood, however, the Link returns to it's above-grade status, with Mount Baker being the first elevated stop. You want to know how this woman, who claims she was misdirected by her GPS, probably ended up here? I would bet anything she tried to make a turn at the intersection just before the stop and got confused. The intersection, for reference, looks like this:
I'm not saying it's an easy mistake to make, but given the number of people who drive through here every day, it's honestly not that surprising that someone, especially someone who is from out of town, or someone who is used to shared streetcar lanes, would eventually make this mistake. When you're dealing with a city of hundreds of thousands of people, it's only a matter of time before a mistake like this happens. but it is only possible for it to happen because of the decisions made in the planning process, and one of those decisions was "we can save money if we make everything worse in that part of town where all the foreign poors live", and so they built the thing at-grade, instead of keeping it elevated like everywhere else.
and yes, those tracks are in the middle of a four lane road, and no, there is no way to get to any of the at-grade stations without crossing at least two lanes of traffic on a very busy avenue. and those tiny little pedestrian islands are not only terrifying to walk on, but a man in a wheelchair was clipped by a passing train car a while back because his chair didn't really fit through the tight turns well and one of his feet was sticking slightly out when the train passed by. This is not a problem at like, any other stops in the Link system. Just here. Just in this neighborhood. And it's a fucking disgrace.
not only was the section of the 1 line built at grade for the purpose of cutting costs, it was directly appealed by a citizens initiative. The Save Our Valley movement (SOV), after not being taken seriously by Sound Transit, sued for race based discrimination and an unfair distribution of public works funding resulting in discriminatory safety hazards, which were argued to be at odds with protections provided by the Civil Rights Act. And guess what. the claims were dismissed anyways. the court dismissed them on grounds that congress could ONLY regulate "intentional discrimination" per the civil rights act and was not authorized to regulate "discriminatory effects", that while the at-grade construction of the light rail line would likely have a disproportionate effect on the minority-dominant area of Rainier Valley, there wasn't any grounds that it was done with racial intent. which, given that the ONLY reason the claims were dismissed was that the discrimination argued couldnt be proven to be intentional, is, ironically, pretty clear evidence of intentional race based discrimination when Sound Transit went ahead with the at grade construction of the Rainier Valley section of Line 1 anyways
pom pom crabs are some of the most unethical animals in the ocean
this man is a serial abuser
His pom poms are two sessile invertebrates he holds in his hands and starves so he can punch stuff with anemones who are so desperate to eat that theyâll use maximum sting on anything that gets close to him. When they starve to death he just finds more
ACTUALLY, IT IS WORSE
The crabs will force the anemones to clone themselves if one dies OR steal othersâ anemones if both die
They havenât found these anemones in their free-living form, so, as far as we know, this anemone species is these crabsâ slave speciesâitâs only known in association with pom pom crabs
Cool paper on this: Schnytzer, Y., Giman, Y., Karplus, I., & Achituv, Y. (2017). Boxer crabs induce asexual reproduction of their associated sea anemones by splitting and intraspecific theft. PeerJ, 5, e2954. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2954
Crabs of the genus Lybia have the remarkable habit of holding a sea anemone in each of their claws. This partnership appears to be obligate,
So if I understand this right, "slave species" is a biology term only used for this ONE SPECIFIC CREATURE OF ALL THE COUNTLESS LIVING ORGANISMS ON THIS ENTIRE PLANET?!
Oh, the slave species thing is outdated information from the original study in the 90âs. To be fair, that study is still very very respected, it was just wrong about this specific thing.
Their anemones arenât a unique species, they are only visually distinct because the crab farms them in a very specific way - making a fragment of a larger hawaiian anemone, or finding a newly spawned one. When they carry it around, they force the anemone to adapt to an entire new lifestyle. The crabâs nocturnal behavior slowly kills the anemoneâs photosynthetic symbionts, from which it gets its color. After that, the crab can control how much food the anemone actually gets by using it to mop up food off the sea floor, and take excess out of its mouth. Since it doesnt have to reach for sunlight, or reach to catch food, this encourages dense, but short tentacles.
The shortcoming of this study was just that its very hard to get the anemone away from the crab without killing both, and its equally hard to get an anemone to bounce back from this state.
Due to their introduction into home aquaria, we now know any anemone they take will end up in this state, (bubble tips, aipistasia, haitian anemones, the list goes on) and we also know they are not bound to carrying anemoneâs specifically. Theyâve been seen collecting zoanthids, palythoa, and euphyllia (though euphyllians usually donât survive).
Linguistics question for uou: How does your stance re: changing of a word apply to the instances where a layperson's misunderstanding of a word *does* change its meaning?
One that comes to mind is "nimrod." Originally meaning a skillfull hunter, its sacrastic use in Bugs Bunny cartoons to mean "idiot" or "buffoon" when describing Elmer Fudd caused it to shift to an almost opposite meaning.
Thoughts?
(In reference to my addition to a post about the word âfavour,â in the context of an injured limb. In its context, which is often veterinary, the injured limb is the one that is âfavouredâ. The majority of respondents to the poll believe that one âfavoursâ the UN-injured limb, with many in the notes claiming that this should be considered semantic drift, and that âthere is no incorrect answerâ because âlanguage evolves.â)
Iâm not a linguist, and Iâm all for language evolving.
âNimrodâ is a cute case study. If you think about it in terms of evolution, there were NO pressures on keeping âNimrodâ reserved as a legendary Biblical hunter. It wasnât being used for a specific working purpose; it wasnât preserved in communities, anchored to practical duties, part of peopleâs living vocabs. It was able to drift because it was a literary reference, and found a funnier purpose.
âFavouring an injured limbâ, on the other hand, is a descriptor actively being used by communities that talk about injured limbs. It has material utility and meets a need. It has a clear definition and rationale. Itâs under continuous practical use. Flipping the definition, or claiming that it has another definition in YOUR head, just isnât the same linguistic pressure as all the people using it correctly for material purposes. Just because the public arenât familiar with its use, and are assigning it vibes based on other senses of the word, doesnât mean that the word is up for drift.
âTeehee, I think it should mean the opposite thing!â is not hugely helpful or useful given the pragmatic gap between âactive useâ and âmisreadingâ. People are USING it to mean something else. In fact, claiming that âthe opposite meaning is just as validâ is clearly causing a lot of confusion in the notes of that post - is this helpful when talking about limb injury?
Further, âLanguage evolvesâ means that language evolves.
I do not believe that âlanguage evolvesâ means:
Illiteracy wins wherever it secures a majority.
Vibes-based readings are just as valid as genuine literacy.
Misunderstandings matter more than material usage.
Laypeopleâs confusion can and should change the meaning of a technical term that a community are actually actively using in a different sense.
Being genuinely wrong, with sufficient confidence, means you get to declare yourself correct, because of your own personal feelings, and further,
that this extra-special-double-down wrongness is ESPECIALLY allowed, suddenly, when it comes to processing information, because âitâs how language works.â
The apparently unchallenged genuine belief that this is how language functionally works.
The belief that language works on Internet-points rules and âlanguage evolvesâ is a magical backdoor to making âboth sidesâ arguments.
The belief that a grandma doing this confers additional respectability, and that respectability is the same thing as being correct.
That a âdefinitionâ of a word that meets no useful criteria for a definition - a vibes-based interpretation that is not defined, observed, recorded anywhere, agreed upon, serving any purpose, or meeting any need (because itâs just vibes and people being wrong) is really BASICALLY the same thing as the existing definition, which actually meets those criteria.
Because vibes.
That it doesnât matter if your personal interpretation is materially unhelpful, not useful, more confusing, directly contradicts the technical use, and is generally materially worse than if you just used the existing word properly - because itâs YOUR personal interpretation.
That âI feel like this should be the caseâ is equal to things actually being the case.
That, in general, âvibesâ are as important and valid as actual material professional diagnostic use of a word.
Both sides of a directly contradictory argument are equally valid and correct - even in a case where one side is bringing evidence, and the other is bringing a misunderstanding based on other definitions of a word.
Those are all things that people on this post seem to think are included in things like âlanguage evolves and meanings change đâ. I do not agree that they are included. I know that people feel they do. Thatâs where my stance diverges.
My stance is that I literally donât approve of the sentiments embodied in those bullet points. I donât believe theyâre rooted in good judgment, or a clear understanding of linguistics. I donât believe they improve communication or clarity, or meet a material need, or plug a communication gap. I donât think that âfavourâ is THAT confusing, when the limb-injury definition is freely available on the same public internet that people are on right now. I donât believe that âthatâs just how language worksâ is a super-special case where everyone ⨠magically gets to be right ⨠because itâs how their grandma used it, when we recognise that nothing else operates like that. I donât generally think that being loudly wrong is just as correct as being quietly right.
And I have never seen any evidence that âlanguage evolves,â used by people who work with language, genuinely means ANY of those things. âLanguage evolvesâ is stuff like ânimrodâ and âchaise lounge.â It is not âmyeloma and melanoma are the same thingâ or âmisreading is just as valid as reading.â
I donât really have a horse in that fight. ďżźbut I do think that people who believe in those bullet points are quite dreary, and I do not invite them to my dinner parties.
When I was a child, I thought "the test was positive" meant you didn't have cancer or whatever scary disease the doctors were afraid you might have. Right up until I said something about it out loud and my parents corrected my understanding.
Imagine refusing to update my internal dictionary and running around telling people they don't have cancer when they do, or vice versa, because "that's what the phrase sounds like to me."
White-throated dipper (Cinclus cinclus)
I was so taken aback by this photo initially like what do you mean there's birds that just do this???
Like yeah there's plenty of underwater birds. But they usually very clearly look like underwater birds!! And then here's this guy just Standing like you are so normal looking what are you doing down there?
Turns out they also have solid bones to help them sink and the way they move underwater looks so much like normal bird flying that it weirds me out:
So yeah huh guess I've learned about dippers now! Absolutely absurd, love them
hudson williams will forever be the first person in history to ever accept a major acting award by noting that the character he portrays loves getting fucked in the ass. nobody can take that from him
jonathan's speech
listen i love HR as much as the next gay and Hudson's speech was great but we can't be rewriting gay history like this on the very first day of pride month đ
never ever trust anyone who uses "listen" as a synonym for "obey"
I think this was the first concrete anti-authoritarian principle I ever adopted. by the time I was 6 I had recognised how parents and teachers LOVE to say "listen to me" when they mean "do what I want" and I knew I hated it. it betrays an insufferably entitled belief that the only reason someone might not be doing what you want them to is that they haven't properly received your instructions. that they couldn't possibly have the agency to hear and understand and then decide differently.
by age 8 I had started to retort with "I'm listening, I just decided not to do it", which my dad (anti-establishment academic) loved and my mum (a cop in all ways except literal) hated.
fast-forward a few decades, and I now realise that when my ex-spouse started using "you're not listening to me" to mean "why aren't you doing what I told you", I should have ended things right then and there. looking back on it there was no coming back from that.
anyway, pay attention to the casual assumptions about authority embedded in the language people choose. it tells you so much.
Sorry I donât want to derail but I also want to add âunderstandâ to this list of words people use to essentially out-word you into obedience. People often use âunderstandâ as a synonym for agreement, usually implying that if someone just understood your way of thinking, theyâd agree with you (not op, you as in general audiences/plural).
Itâs not always malicious either, I think itâs quite common even in conversations with the best of intentions to confuse âunderstandingâ and âagreementâ. IMO, âunderstanding = agreementâ also is not exclusively something used by people who desire authoritarian control over othersâIâve had MANY conversations with people where we both end up in this long spiraling debate bc both parties were operating under the logic of âmy stance is perfectly reasonable, and the only reason why someone wouldnât agree is because they didnât understand meâ.
âUnderstandingâ vs âagreeingâ extends into politics too. Thereâs this idea among a lot of leftists that âconservatives just donât understand us/donât understand politicsâ. Many do! And they disagree anyway for a myriad of reasons. I understand why they doâand I obviously disagree with their reasoning. It doesnât mean I donât understand them, actually, the reason I disagree with them is specifically because I understand them.
Anyway not to go on too long but this just made me remember something I learned/told someone awhile ago, which was in response to them saying âYouâre not understanding meâ, to which I replied: âI understand you perfectly, but I still disagree with youâ.
If we are expanding this to adjacent concepts of things that best case bossy worst case abusive people use in a shitty way, may I submit "meet me in the middle" and "compromise".
Cannot tell you how often that is code for "do what *I* want". Maybe sometimes they might throw you a "we can take turns" but it's never ever your fucking turn. It sounds better than the other options but still means "you are going to do what I say (and if you don't, I will label you 'difficult' and ask why you're being a bitch)." Obey or I will just be fucking exhausting and make your life atrocious until you do it anyway.
That shit is so insidious.
None of these phrases are bad on their own, but boy do dickheads try to use them to extract obedience.
Love this thread.
I am listening. I will still question what you are telling me to do or believe.
I do understand. I just disagree with you.
I am willing to work with you, but I refuse to give up the things that are important to me.
I'm a person. If you want someone to do everything you say all the time, play a fucking video game.
