#za writes

[zenosanalytic]

People disagreeing with you is not an insult or a challenge; it is merely the natural consequence of their brain not being your brain.

[zenosanalytic]

You know how bullshit rent is? Elon Musk hasn't paid rent on Twitter's main offices in, like, 6 months, and has Twitter been evicted? Of course not. Apparently, when you're rich or a company, you can just tell your landlords to fuck off and the gov won't do shit to you.

[zenosanalytic]

I've been watching this anime on Netflix called Ramparts of Ice(link to the wiki. Apparently it was originally a webcomic???), and it's a PERFECT example of how humans totally CANNOT READ EACH OTHER'S MINDS, but constantly THINK They can :> I Love It uvu uvu

It's not really a "Comedy of Manners", but obvsl INSPIRED by that genre, so I will dub it a "Comedy of Psychology" :3 :3 :3

[zenosanalytic]

Idea: a Modern DnD Druid character who's personable, easy-going, wise, great in every respect...

...Except they "do the dishes" by Communing with the insects living in your building and asking them to eat all the food off the plates :| :| :|

[zenosanalytic]

I don't have any problem at all with Homestuck Fanart portraying Tavros as a robust Cowboy, I honestly don't: I think it can legit be a cool take and that there's a fair bit of worldbuilding(ie: Tav's hive; his bull theming) which supports it,

BUT

at the same time, one of the things that made HS appeal so strongly to the ppl it did(including me) when I was getting into it(adjusts in rocking chair, on porch, surveying lawn) was the prevalence of disability, illness, and neurodivergence among the trolls, and Tav was obvsl a huge focus of that, and you just don't see it as much in fanart as you used to(tho maybe that's more a Me problem and there are other corners of the fandom where it's still common).

I think we can be, and Are, allot more critical about HOW disability&neurodivergence was portrayed in the comic back then, but at the same time I'm kinda sad to see less art celebrating that aspect of it these days.

[zenosanalytic]

I've been thinking about the human tendency to blame people for their illnesses allot lately, and a few days ago it occurred to me that Humans, being social animals, have brains which instinctively seeks Agents for any event they encounter because their "native environment" is society; is Other People.

So: when a human is dealing with a sick person, and they're making concessions to that illness(doing this, not doing that, investing their time in care instead of personal pursuits, etc) there is no native impulse to blame the illness because the illness isn't a person and People is what the human brain impulsively seeks. The most proximate person TO the illness, is the ill person theirself. And, of course, the ill person is the one needing accommodation, i.e. the "cause", to the non-sick person's mind, of their concessions. Ergo, person gets sick: sick person asks for things; people blame sick person.

That's entirely irrational of course: people don't get sick by choice they get sick by encountering pathogens in the correct context in large enough quantities to be infected by them or by something going haywire in their bodies. And the above is just my own reasoning, of course; I dont have any data pointing to this conclusion so it's just Riffing at this point.

[zenosanalytic]

It's important to understand that a concern over spending and desire to balance the US budget HAS NEVER BEEN why Republicans wanted to cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, or any social program; they want to cut these programs because they were designed and passed by the Democratic Party.

To begin with and most obviously: the Republicans have NEVER balanced the budget despite controlling the US government half the time, and they've never tried. Look at the current proposed budget which would swallow and dwarf the massive cuts in social services they are making with even more massive tax cuts to the wealthy, and a massive increase in ICE's budget. If they cared about a balanced budget, they wouldn't make unbalanced budgets. Moreover, It hardly needs to be pointed out that those with the most money are most equipped to PAY taxes, and that pushing the national tax burden almost entirely onto the non-wealthy will make hitting the revenue-targets this budget assumes will be more difficult, if even possible, which again: if they cared about a balanced budget they wouldn't hurt the US's ability to collect money FOR that budget.

But more deeply: The Republican Party is in competition with the Democratic Party. They want to "win" that competition, and everything Democrats do is a "win" for them, and a "loss" for Republicans. Likewise, ending programs Democrats established is a "win" for Republicans(in their view), and a "loss" for Dems. They want to make Dems lose, so they want to end Democratic programs. It's as simple as that, and the rest is just lies to get you to go along with this incredibly juvenile and self-centered way of looking at the world, because of course this isn't a fucking game of baseball we're talking about: it's People's Fucking Lives.

[zenosanalytic]

When Christians Kill God

I was watching a Big Joel video essay on Nebula this morning(sorry, can't link it rn: he hasn't put it on youtube yet) about the God's Not Dead series of christian-nationalist movies, and it crystalized something for me:

When Nietzsche said "God is Dead"(and I have my Issues with Nietzsche this is not a "Nietzsche is Great" post), he didn't mean god had ltrl had a heart attack or something, nor did he mean ppl didn't BELIEVE in god anymore. He meant "God", as a concept, had lost the explanatory and organizational meaning he felt it had in the past: that "God" was no longer a transcendent and otherworldly point for social cohesion, which provided structure and meaning to society and life, and The Church no longer an institution everyone deferred to and interacted with by dint of its divine-connection, but rather that both had become subordinate to gross political power. He meant that God-as-concept was now a mere rhetorical means to achieve inescapably worldly, political ends(one could fairly argue if "God" had ever been anything BUT that).

There's a moment in one of the latest of these movies subtitled In God We Trust[1](we'll get back to this) that is VERY telling. The hero of the film, a conservative pastor running for congress, is debating a strawman liberal and the liberal says something like "Isn't do unto others the main message of Christianity? Isn't Love Thy Neighbor central to the teachings of Jesus?" to which the hero says "No." both times and then responds "central to the teachings of Jesus, IS Jesus." and follows it up with "the only reason the teachings of Jesus resonate is because he was the son of god" meaning that christianity isn't about following Joshua's teachings or example, but just baldly about worshiping him, as a deity and like:

First off Josh Says(Im going to have to quote the Gospel of John quite extensively here to make a point, so plz excuse that) pretty clearly

I am the way the truth and the life

That how he lived is The Life dedicated to god, and his example the WAY to god, and his life's teachings AND example the TRUTH of god, and reiterates it later when asked by Phillip to show them god by saying

have I been with you all this time, Phillip, and you still do not know me?

in other words 'WHAT HAVE I BEEN TEACHING YOU That you don't know god yet? Haven't you been paying attention to my words and actions?' and later

The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own, but the Father who dwells in me does his works

in other words 'The Words of my Teachings are the Work of God. I. HAVE. BEEN. TEACHING YOU. GOD' and then, still, following from that

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, but if you do not, then believe because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.

and later still

Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words, and the word that you hear is not mine but is from the Father who sent me

It Could-Not-Be-Fucking-Clearer: Joshua is saying DIRECTLY 'If you believe in me you will live by my example and my teachings, and if you do not live The Way and The Truth I have brought to you FROM GOD, then you DO.NOT. believe in me' His message could not be clearer.

The people who made God's Not Dead: In God We Trust made it's culminating moment a DIRECT RENUNCIATION of Joshua's teachings, and John 14 specifically, in favor of worshiping divinity in-and-of-itself. They reject his life, his teachings, his works --Everything the Gospels equate directly to Joshua and through him to God-- to merely worship a god for being a god, and in doing so mark themselves out as not christian at all. They DO NOT keep his words, and so they do not love him, and they are PROUD OF THIS!

So, No, God's Not Dead: In God We Trust(which you CLEARLY DONT DO, Actually): Christ is NOT "the central message of christianity", his WORDS are his BODY and those who KEEP them in their Hearts make themselves a HOME FOR GOD. When you reject his Words, you reject his Way, you reject his Life, you reject God, You. Reject. Christ.

I am no christian, but by the standards of the professed beliefs of the people who made this work, of the VERY TEXT they claim is their inspiration and truth, bowing down to divinity is NOT Enough. You HAVE to Walk the Way; you MUST Accept his Words.

But more to my point: What better proof that "God Is Dead", no longer a pillar to build your life around and bring ppl together by, now nothing more than a tool for unscrupulous power-seekers, than a gang of wealthy liars calling themselves ~Christians~ proudly celebrating their Rejection of "The Way The Truth The Life" in favor of scraping at divinity's feet, as a tawdry tactic to drum up votes for an election.

They Spit on their God and call it "Faith".

[1]That they'd name it this is particularly galling, given everything else, because of course that Wasn't The Original Motto of the US, E Pluribus Unum(Out of Many, One) is, but rather one adopted in 1956 after a long campaign of political christians campaigning for it. In other words: That "In God We Trust" is the official US motto is yet another example of God being reduced from something holy to a political football. ↩︎