lovin' humanity

Parri | 19 | iranian american | they/she/he/xe | diehard fan of the world's inherent goodness | rooting for those who cross this path 🌟

[furryprovocateur]

it's literally insane to me that if you steal enough televisions you can go to prison forever. like we effectively go "okay your life is less important to me than a panasonic TV". we literally value property more than human life

[furryprovocateur]

ok so this post is insane right? like the concept of imprisoning someone forever because they've stolen TVs is really crazy right. ok now replace "televisions" and "panasonic TV" with FOOD. you can go to prison forever if you steal food to survive. if you literally are like "i'm going to starve to death if i don't steal this food" and then get caught enough you can go to prison forever.

Prisons are inherently and ideologically unethical. Prisons exist to house society's undesirables and create a slave labor force that is legal. The "violent offender that needs to be housed away from society" is a myth used to proliferate this concept. Criminality is a symptom of social inequity and can be solved with better social and economic infrastructure. Abolish prisons.

[liberalsarecool]

Reframe the narrative. #LanguageMatters

[toasty-warm]

gotta say just cuz i havnt seen it brought up anywhere; HUGE fan of this new era we are entering here. of unions and blackouts and attempts at criminalizing transness failing.

like yes obviously all of these only arise because situations are getting ridiculously bleak. but there are victories happening. people are taking stands. and right now a lot of it seems like hopeless shouting at deaf corporate ears but people are still shouting yknow.

thing will probably still get worse before they get any better, but the ground work for that better is being laid right now and im excited to see where it goes

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

here's my hot take about my generation and people younger than me (I'm 22 years old)

The reason current teenagers and people in their really early 20s are conservative on accident and have such shitty takes on the internet is because our generation was much more sheltered than previous generations and because we were raised to be ok with orwellian servailence and that is 100% the fault of our parents, Reagan Era kidnapping panics, and the rise of technology all coming together to prevent us from doing the sketchy shit that sends parents into panic mode but which is also completely fundemental to childhood development. If your parents had even a crumb of money to their name and even a shred of free time they started tracking your phone as soon as it was possible to. I did not experience this because my parents are actively trying to live like it's the 1990s and still have not gotten cell phones of their own, and did not let me have one until I was 18 years old and it was no longer their choice, but literally over half of my friends in middle and high school had their phones tracked by their parents at some point or other, and we would occasionally find this out, not because their parents told them, but when we were trying to do the aforementioned sketchy shit and their parent's car would pull up. And I would, like a reasonable person after finding this out, encourage my friends to just leave their phones at home, and their response would be "What if I get kidnapped" or "My parents are just trying to keep me safe"

This in my estimation has lead to a combination of kids being terminally online because they do have internet access and are better at deleting search history than their parents think they are, but don't have the freedom to go out and do shit without their parents' knowledge or consent, so they have the most privacy from the people who control their lives while they're on the internet, and kids not having the real world experiences they should have, not knowing how to connect with other people irl, not feeling comfortable leaving the house because of the horror story lies their parents told them to make them ok with the surveillance they were inflicting on their kids. Kids these days are growing up in the fucking panopticon when they should be out in the woods playing with knives or stealing cigarettes from their older sibling and going out to an empty parking lot to smoke them or whatever and that shit is sticking with them into adulthood. Things that were "tee hee we could get in trouble isn't this so fun and daring" in the 1990s and 2000s have become in the 2010s and 2020s things that are "If I do that without texting my parents some sort of lie to excuse where my location is my parent's car will pull up and I will get grounded for the next two weeks."

Like even when I was 19 I had a 16 year old friend who would volunteer their time at a food shelf and that's how we knew each other. We would talk about dungeons and dragons together, and the game store was 4 blocks from the food shelf. One day we left the food shelf earlier than they had told their parents they would and they got punished for that. We were literally just going to look at dungeons and dragons miniatures and dice, which was self evident if you could see where we started and how far we walked and where too. I have to assume that this isn't uncommon. It's wrong, but it's not uncommon.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

Ok it has become apparent to me that people do not understand what I mean by conservative on accident.

Nobody my age is voting republican. Let's be clear on that. With the exception of a small minority of gamer gaters and people who were raised in actual cults most people my age are either commies or good liberals who votes straight blue down the ticket. This is because of the greta thunberg effect. We're all afraid of dying of thirst because there's no water anymore at the age of 35. Wealthy white children are no longer safe with the republican party which has become less of a political party and more of a death cult, and white children are less wealthy than they used to be (I specify white because POC by in large never voted for the party of the southern strategy for obvious reasons). We as a generation are so insanely blue that they're trying to raise the voting age to 25 about it.

This liberalism and party affiliation doesn't preclude them from being conservative on accident. What I mean by that is... Well

No kink at pride is a great example. The assumption that pride should exist at all makes them think that they're immune to conservative logic but they're still trying to enforce a dominant ideology onto a minority group. That person who made the tweet about how you shouldn't have sex in houses where there are children in the other room and if you can't avoid it you're a sex addict. That's a great example of like straight up puritanism coming out of the mouth of someone who proports themselves to be a leftist

If you ever see a discourse that feels like an obvious psyop as an adult and you can't understand why these supposed leftist youths are falling for it it's because that kid has never had sex in the woods and had to try to buy plan b under their parent's nose. My generation is dumb about sex. We're dumb about drugs. We're dumb about theft. We moralize literally everything. We're so dumb about stranger danger that we never learned how to community organize so while the vast vast majority of us are crushed by existential dread about debt and climate change but we never do anything about it because we just don't know how to organize because we're raised to see everyone else as a threat and we never went to or organized parties as teens because our parents would always know and stop us.

They managed to invent a generation that hates capitalism but fully buys into individualism and who is supportive of queer people and way less monogamous than previous generations but who still buys into the base assumptions of the nuclear family and thinks sex is evil. The levels of politics going on here are way weirder and stupider and more complicated than "young people vote republican and watch Fox news"

[hairasuntouchedaspartoftheamazon]

I've never seen anybody explain it so well

[fandomsoda]

Reminder:

Joy in the face of oppression is rebellion. Kindness is rebellion. Community is rebellion. Compassion is rebellion. Looking out for your fellow human beings is rebellion. Self care is rebellion. In this system that encourages individualism and isolates us, love on a platonic, communal, societal level is rebellion. Connection, unity, joy, solidarity, it is radical. So be kind. Be compassionate. Do good things for your fellow working class people. Do good things for yourself. It’s one step further towards a better tomorrow.

[legitimately]

@hopepunk-humanity

[teaboot]

Please don't ask me for relationship advice unless you are prepared to receive some truly upsetting information because some people are ready for the "He's exhibiting the literal textbook signs of a psychological abuser and you need to get away from him before he successfully cuts you off from your support network" talk and some people aren't

[teaboot]

FOR WHOEVER NEEDS A REMINDER:

There is never any justification for someone putting their hands on you in any way without your consent short of immediate risk of harm or death.

If someone tells you that "the way I'm acting is your fault because you know that doing X thing would make me do it and you chose to do it anyway" is just fancy bullshit talk for, "I know my behaviour is wrong, but I don't want to be held responsible for it so I'm pushing it on you"

Nothing good ever, ever comes from someone who tells you, "I don't want you talking about our relationship with anyone". This person cannot handle accepting responsibility and processing criticism so they need you to never, ever question them. That's easier if they control the narrative and your friends aren't there to cut in.

Nothing constructive comes from screaming.

"It's not like that all the time" is optimistic and sweet, but the truth is, it shouldn't be like that at all. Sweet words and gifts and gestures don't erase being frightened for yourself or for your loved ones. That is not normal. Don't minimize it.

It is not healthy or normal to be genuinely afraid of saying "no" to someone, for any reason at all. Violence, outbursts, retaliation, anything. You should not have to be afraid of someone's reaction to your boundaries.

You are not responsible for saving anyone. Even if you love them. Even if they have nobody else. At the end of the day, if they want to hurt themselves in any way, they will, and you can't stop them forever. People need to want to improve before they can actually improve, and if they're threatening to harm themselves to keep you around, they're using your love to hold themselves hostage. You do not decide their choices for them, and they don't get to shunt that off on you.

There will always be other people who can love you better. You will not be alone forever. This will not be the last time you care for someone like this and it will not be the last time someone cares for you

[teaboot]

This applies to ALL relationships btw

[jethroq]

[holleywoodsigns]

[the-book-reaper]

[ID: The first picture is of a tweet by @DJ_theoretical that says:

Every time I see the phrase "family-friendly" in the Discourse, I remember how I was evicted for being trans and the landlord's exact words were "I want a family-friendly household, and you [trans people] aren't that"

The second picture is of a tweet by @hayxsmith that says:

The purpose of Pride is to find safety in number and put pressure on social/political barriers with visibility and protest. The reason it isn't "family-friendly" is because you believed we did not belong in your families.

"Family-friendly" has become an anti-gay dog whistle.

End ID]

[arctic-hands]

Hoopla, Overdrive/Libby Now Banned for Those Under 18 in Mississippi

Public libraries in Mississippi have cut off access to digital platforms like Overdrive and Hoopla to those under 18.

I never want to hear conservatives go on about repressive censorship in China, North Korea, and Iran ever again

[ryanthedemiguy]

To be clear to those unfamiliar: these are the companies that libraries use to lend ebooks.

They are literally cutting off library access to minors.

[attractivegkry]

Just as a reminder: The Brooklyn Public Library is giving free digital library cards to kids aged 13 - 21. You can find more information here: https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/nyc-libraries-are-offering-free-digital-library-cards-to-people-across-the-u-s-041322

Signal Boost where needed.

[akindplace]

Some days, the brave thing is to stay in bed and rest, allowing yourself to recover, even when your anxiety tells you are worthless if you don't get up. Resisting that pressure that will only put your health at risk and taking care of yourself to avoid more pain and burn out is brave too. It takes courage to confront the fact that you can't live up to extremely high expectations and that you need rest in a society that places so much value in being productive to the detriment of your health. If you can, please allow yourself to take some time off and to recover. Remember that there is courage in tending to yourself when everything else tells you that you shouldn't.

[papayajuan2019]

part of accepting love for me also requires accepting grief, dissolution. my pets will die, my friends may drift from me, lovers may have a change of heart. none of it makes the love in vain. part of accepting love is accepting movement. but love is mostly letting myself get lost in the moment, i am learning. letting myself be fully alive in the now. i dont always need to think that far ahead all the time. the potential exists now.

[virtuevistavalley]

you can't oppression olympics your way out of how your trauma affected you.

[virtuevistavalley]

"other people had it worse" bitch! I don't care! just from looking at you it's plain and obvious that you've had a time of it! a person can drown in six inches of water, it doesn't matter if someone else is drowning in ten feet! you're both still fucking drowning! show yourself a little bit of compassion before I come over there and do it for you. this is a threat

[remanence-of-love]

[honeymooncupid]

People will still love you even when you're not at your best, people will still love you even if you're not perfect, people will still love you even if you mess up and make a mistake, people will still love you when you're not feeling like yourself at a certain moment, people will still love you even if you don't love yourself.

People will still love you, no matter the circumstances. There will always be someone that loves you, even if you don't realize it right now.

[mysteelecreek]

[faustandfurious]

If you expect fiction, especially so-called genre fiction, to educate you on politics, social issues and morality, you might just read too little nonfiction

[dduane]

Or you may know some high-quality genre fiction writers.

[nerdvanauniverse]

OP answering 'tell me you haven't read Pratchett without telling me you haven't read Pratchett' with their whole chest

[faustandfurious]

I have, in fact, read Pratchett. And my point still stands, because it’s less about what individual fiction writers put into their fiction, and more about everyone and their grandmother approaching fiction with the expectation of being educated on these matters and complaining when a fantasy novel doesn’t contain correct messages on every social and political issue because it’s too busy telling a story. Pratchett is good, but you’re still doing him a disservice as a writer of fiction if you rely solely on Discworld for your political education.

[faustandfurious]

Take, for instance, The Handmaid’s Tale, an explicitly political work of fiction. It can serve as a wake-up call and a rallying cry with regards to women’s reproductive rights in particular and feminism in general. But it cannot give you a complete understanding of the history and struggles of the real world feminist movement, because it is a work of fiction set in a fictional society, and Atwood is first and foremost an author telling a story, not a schoolteacher educating you on history and politics. If you want to understand, for instance, the events leading to Roe v. Wade being overturned, you’re at some point going to need more substance than «oh this is just like Gilead».

Or take Animal Farm. You can’t understand the Russian Revolution and Soviet Communism just by reading Animal Farm, on the contrary you need knowledge of both the Soviet Union and Orwell’s own political views to fully comprehend the political allegory acted out by the farm animals. Even the most political fiction isn’t a substitute for nonfiction if you want a nuanced understanding of the politics and social issues around you.

Look, I’m not forcing anyone at gunpoint to read nonfiction, nor insinuating that nonfiction is inherently better than fiction, they’re just different things and I’m tired of seeing people read fiction and complain that it doesn’t do the things nonfiction does.

[prismatic-bell]

OP actually has a really good point. Fiction has a fantastic place as social and political commentary, but it can’t teach you all the ins and outs of a topic and, inevitably, it will have a bias of some kind because of who the story chooses to follow. For example, consider Stephen King’s 11/22/63. It’s a fantastic book in which someone from the modern day is able to go back to 1958, and works to stop the Kennedy assassination—by following Lee Harvey Oswald. It’s a great book! I learned new things about the events leading up to Kennedy’s assassination because of it, and because of how King chose to focus the work. And because King was a teenager when these events took place, I also got that rarest of treasures: functionally, an eyewitness account of parts of the 1950s and 1960s I knew nothing about.

That said? I absolutely did not learn ANYTHING about the political effects of Kennedy’s assassination. The protagonist got back to the present and someone said something about George Wallace and I had to go look up who that was. King assumed anyone reading either would know, or would, like me, be able to look it up, so he didn’t waste valuable narrative time on explaining George Wallace. If 11/22/63 was your only textbook on the Kennedy assassination you’d miss most of the Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy’s politically-disastrous affair with Marilyn Monroe, what happened during Oswald’s defection to the USSR (yes, that happened), Jack Ruby, the Warren Report, and—crucially—THE ASSASSINATION ITSELF. All the stuff you’ve learned about in school—Babushka Lady, the Zapruder film, the grassy knoll, all of that—is happening while the protagonist is in the book depository Oswald shot from. HE DOESN’T SEE ANY OF IT. NONE OF IT MAKES THE PAGE. And crucially, King had to make a decision: Kennedy assassination conspiracies are a dime a dozen and there’s a pretty decent chunk of evidence backing most of them. He had to decide whether he was going to say Oswald acted alone. Which is indeed what he did, and that is the official story, but the point is, in making that decision he had to start fictionalizing at some point. Oswald wasn’t exactly wearing a GoPro King could pull from later. Do I think he did a decent job? Absolutely. Is it ACCURATE? Well…at some point, no. It stops being history and becomes his story (one featuring time travel, no less).

There is no way to accurately learn history and politics 100% through fiction.

[angelaeleni]

If you’re feeling off center, bring your focus back into yourself in this moment. The most central thing for you to do is re-connect with what it is that you truly want for you.

[teaboot]

I know this isn't going to go well here but the actively encouraging people to shoplift because "fuck billion dollar corporations" is a risky fucking move and I don't think yall really understand what you're getting into.

Imagine you have a billion dollar company. First thing you're gonna wanna do is incorporate. That means a catastrophic loss to the company cannot be taken out of your ass. The corporation is, legally speaking, a person who is totally separate to you.

Let's say that people are stealing product, and you're losing inventory that was projected to be sold. You wanna meet that projected income, right? You can't say, "people stole from this store, and the employees failed to prevent it, so I'm gonna take it out of their income." That's illegal in most places and looks bad PR wise. So what you do is, you say, "this company isn't selling enough to meet quota, so we're compensating in other areas." What does that look like? That looks like fewer hours for part-time staff, fewer hires, lower quality uniforms and supplies. Your employees work $10 an hour, you lose $100, maybe you take an hour off ten people. Maybe you don't grant extra hours to people requesting it. Maybe you double down on discouraging overtime but still insist the same goals be met. Maybe you raise prices on things that disappear, to cover what's gonna get taken

Even with all this, you'd have to cut back even more if you just *let theft happen*, right? So you hire security to operate cameras, follow people, watch staff. It's expensive, but still cheaper than it WOULD be if word got around that your doors are free and open to anyone walking in with sticky fingers.

So you nab some shit anyway. Whatever. Surprise- there is no pattern to who specifically gets watched. Anyone coming in might get a random follow, just to check in. You don't get arrested? That doesn't mean anything. It might be a busy day. It might be what you took is low enough value that they can let you go, wait to see how often you do it, how long you've been doing it, whether it's a one-off or if you're on it all the time. Maybe they have a checklist of things they need to cover before they can ban you from the property, and after that, criminal trespass is a crime, too. Maybe they have six different pictures of your face and are running it through other stores to see if you've stolen there, too, and once someone finds your name or your address or your regular pattern of behaviour? You go down for all of it at once, and you don't even know you're fucked until it's too late.

I get it. Shit is the way it is. I just don't wanna see yall starting a shoplifting hobby stealing lipgloss and dollar candy off the fucking cuff because some dumbass online posted a guillotine and told you to eat the rich.

Like.

There are ramifications, you know?

Stay safe out there