[1dietcokeinacan]

#GOOD #MORE

[vintagewildlife]

"I can't believe humans would hunt the thylacine to extinction, humans are fundamentally evil" Hey, did you know that extinction was long thought to be impossible, and within 50 years of humans realizing that extinction via overhunting was a possibility it practically stopped happening? Did you know that humans are so desperate to prevent more losses that they're funneling millions of collective hours and billions of euros into helping other species? Hours and euros that could be spent on humans, and species on whom humanity's own survival does not depend? Did you know that due to an accidental introduction of rats, the Lord Howe Island stick insect population was brought down to 24 individuals and now there are tens of thousands of them?

This bug. This bug that, to most humans, is utterly useless, relatively gross, and completely foreign. Humans saved it because humans do not want to cause another extinction ever again if they can avoid it.

[untimelytophat]

@crabussy

[crabussy]

as someone in the field of ecological conservation, I can promise without a shadow of a doubt that people DO care. SO MANY people care.

I have to race to sign up to volunteer trips because even with dozens of spots available, people rush to devote their unpaid free time to helping the environment. these trips often fill up within hours. people care.

you will see a lot of bad news because that is the kind of news that people pay the most attention to. I know this more than you'd think from my optimism- not only do I live somewhere facing some of the most extreme ecological issues on the planet, I also spend my time studying the Bad Stuff every single day.

to see all of this firsthand and stay hopeful is proof enough that there IS hope. I promise there is good news, brilliant news, all the time. it's just less visible. but it's no less important or impactful.

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

my greatest accomplishment in life is that I inadvertently made my friend break up with her shitty boyfriend by throwing her a really fucking awesome birthday party

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

okay so I fucking love event planning and decorating and hosting and baking, aka all the elements of a banger birthday party. I am so freaking happy to throw people parties because it means I get to throw a party, then go to a party! yippee!

so my friend's birthday rolled around and I knew she wanted a party because I'd done them for her before, but I wanted to make it extra special because she was turning the big 25. so I did all the regular stuff I am So Excited About: had her roommates let me into her apartment while she was out, put up balloons and homemade garlands and streamers and table decor, made her favorite cake and snack plates and cocktails, ordered catering from a restaurant she loves, got a bunch of our friends to come over to surprise her, wrote her a disgustingly heartfelt card, etc. and then because it was the big quarter century, I was like I gotta do something extra.

now. I do not like clowns. my friend loves clowns. we've gone to the circus together and she's seen me literally close my eyes and hide when the clowns are out in the audience, meanwhile she's screaming and waving at them. so obviously I hired a clown for her birthday. (btw seeing him out of clown costume made me less freaked out because now I knew that the guy under there looks like someone's uncle.)

so she showed up after work totally expecting a party because I'm too paranoid to throw a real surprise party, and obviously loved it. and then I was like btw. there's a clown.

she lost her mind. she was sooo excited. she loved the party and she loved the clown. I was like haha yes I'm getting a good grade in birthday parties and didn't think much of it because frankly I do this a lot, and it's so much fun for me that I don't consider it work. like, I love doing all that for my friends. it's not any kind of sacrifice.

two days later, she texted me that she broke up with her boyfriend.

naturally I was like omg tell me everything I hated that guy let's get coffee. so we did and she told me that for her birthday, her boyfriend of nine months 1) forgot about it and didn't get her anything, 2) got mad at her for not texting him while she was at her party, 3) got mad at her for telling him about the party because it was "passive aggressive", and 4) called her immature and stupid for being excited about a clown at her birthday.

this was all very in character for him. but she'd just come from a lovely birthday party full of her friends who love her and want to put effort into making a nice day for her, where her friend who hates clowns hired a clown just to make her happy even though the party alone would've been plenty. and suddenly this wasn't a boyfriend being kinda forgetful and lazy, it was a glaring incongruity with everyone else in her life. so she finally dumped his ass. and I was soooo freaking happy. so clowns can be good.

[impossiblepackage]

that relationship was already over, she didn’t even bring her boyfriend to her birthday party at her own apartment

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

actually it's worse than that! she knew there would be a party, but not what day. I invited her boyfriend to the party. he said no.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Degrowth proceeds from the position that there is already more than enough productive capacity. The problem is that capital controls that productive capacity (the labour, resources, factories, etc), and therefore produces what is profitable to capital... so we get massive overproduction of SUVs, weapons, mansions, etc, with devastating ecological consequences... and we get chronic shortages of obviously necessary things because they are less profitable or not profitable at all. The solution is to reclaim democratic control over the means of production, overcome the capitalist law of value, and organize production around social and ecological goals (in other words, socialism). This must include, and indeed is enabled by, degrowing damaging and unnecessary production. With this approach, we know it is possible to ensure good lives for all 8 billion people on this planet (including supplying all the "core goods" these authors call for) with less total resource use and energy use, and less total output, than the world economy presently produces.

Jason Hickel

[queeranarchism]

& I would add that 'massive overproduction with devastating ecological consequences' includes isn't just stuff the billionaires, big businesses and governments own.

It's fast fashion. It's year-round tropical fruits in the global north. It's a lot of unnecessary smart gadgets produced with rare earth minerals. It's daily consumption of a large piece of meat. These are not things 8 billion people can have if we want a sustainable world, so those in the imperial core should get used to not feeling entitled to them. .

Degrowth means losing some access to trivial things, as you gain stable life-long access to essentials like housing, health care.

[phaeton-flier]

So many little ways that hatred of some underclass — immigrants, the homeless, the young — requires making things worse for everyone so those in the under class don't get anything nice either. Whole smorgasbord of shooting yourself in the foot out of spite

[mamawasatesttube]

the thing about media literacy is that understanding why the author chose to specify that the curtains are blue is the same skill set as understanding that the way the author characterizes all black characters as angry or all chinese characters as meek and silent is racist. it is the same skill set as being able to identify when a news source is biased or when someone is feeding you propaganda. the ability to ask "why did this person choose to present this premise in this specific way?" is a critical skill in a world full of misinformation. why are the curtains blue? maybe it's a characterization detail. maybe it's extraneous worldbuilding. why is this character written as being right all the time? maybe you're intended to disagree with them. maybe it doesn't matter. maybe you should still ask why.

[maswartz]

AI toys for young children need tighter rules, researchers warn

In first study of its kind, Cambridge researchers found AI toys could misread some children's emotions.

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

I think bread is a super underrated invention. I am very grateful to the ancestors for bread. I bet it was a lot of work to figure it out and everything.

Everyone's always like, "The wheel! Masonry!" But what about fucking bread, you know? 15,000 years old and arguably better than ever.

[jamaicanblackcastoroil]

Thank you pita, thank you naan, thank you sourdough, thank you brioche, thank you rye, thank you wheat, thank you pumpernickel, thank you bagel/bialy, thank you baguette, thank you ciabatta, thank you cornbread, thank you focaccia, thank you challah, thank you

[w0nderland42]

i get that americans love their cultural imperialism, but it really does piss me off that june is “international” pride month just because something happened in the united states.

in aotearoa, june isn’t our pride, it’s theirs. marsha p johnson and sylvia rivera are their historical figures, not ours. the phrase that “you owe your rights to Black trans women” is true there, but here we owe our rights to (mostly) Māori historical figures. i have the freedoms i do because of the legacy of an entirely different set of people operating in an entirely different context at entirely different times.

But because of american cultural imperialism, most queer people in Aotearoa don’t even know our own queer history. Carmen Rupe, Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, the Dorian Society, Gillian Laundon, Georgina Beyer, and the Wolfenden Association are some of our queer history. We should know their names! we should know what they did for us! but because of the power of the american imperial machine, we don’t.

our national pride month should be july, the month that the Homosexual Law Reform Act passed in 1986. our two largest cities hold their pride festivals in february and march, respectively. american queer history has very little (or nothing, depending on who you ask) to do with our queer history. anecdotally, from my own queries, queer youth in aotearoa know more about american queer history than our own.

anyway, happy pride, americans. i’m truly sorry that most of you don’t see the negative impact your nation’s culture has on the rest of the world. and to the rest of the world reading this, try searching for your own country and culture’s queer history, don’t accept the american narratives as your own. we deserve our own histories divorced from the cultural hegemony of the USA.

[queeranarchism]

#why not make a post focused on your own countries pride rather than it being in the shadow of the U.S.’s holiday shit #like as an american i agree with you #it doesn’t have to be international #i’m not exactly the one who decided that but #y’know? like it’s just more constructive to teach abt your own pride and history than to just rag on the problem #who gives af abt the problem #what’s the fucking solution?

What you're not getting here is that cultural imperialism is a massive issue that is far bigger than 'knowing your own queer history'.

A world in which everyone is familiar with most topics from an American perspective*, but not from any other perspective, is a world in which trans people have to express their transness in an American way in order to fit DSM diagnosis criteria and get healthcare.

It's a world in which sexually marginalized communities have to identify as LGBT - regardless of whether that fits their own concepts of sexual and gender diversity - in order to get funding for HIV prevention and treatment.

It's a world in an American academic who presents themselves as an expert on 'Africa' is more likely to be believed and have their opinions turned into policy, than any actual on-the-ground experts who understand the specific context of specific countries in Afrika.

It's a world in which sympathizing with the victims of bombings or disasters is intuitive and automatic when the victim is an American girl-next-door sorority applepie valedictorian AnneMae McDonald, but not when they're called Fatemeh and live in Iran.

Knowing your own history doesn't help with any of that because these problems are about the power imbalance that cultural imperialism creates.

Cultural imperalism creates access to being understood when you name your experiences. Cultural imperialism creates access to empathy. Cultural imperialism creates access to being seen as human, and to your life being seen as worthy of protection.

It's a big deal and it's kind of worth making posts about.

(* and almost always from a white American perspective)

[stroebe2]

I feel insane watching what's going on in Lebanon and how similar it is to Gaza and yet no one is speaking up. I understand that Trump's agression war towards Iran is occupying most of the news space but every day there are new images of atrocities committed by israel and it's like nobody even bats an eye anymore. A million people displaced and Beirut's being bombed every day. Whole residential buildings where people spent their lives brought down. It's ethnic cleansing. How can we let this happen? It's sickening

[queeranarchism]

And like, the Israeli government is saying with their full chest that they're "treating Libanon just like Gaza" and "Beirut will look like Khan Younis". They're saying it out loud as they're shelling ambulances and medical clinics. They could not be more blatant about it.

Meanwhile Gaza is locked again, the violence and the lack of medical access and the hunger continues and if it lasts long enough Gaza will starve again, but the media completely ignores that too.

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

#Repost @mattxiv

may the universe reward their bravery

first image by @soulwork6

[encaitarion]

Heroes.

[rasputinaillyanna]

[durnesque-esque]

In case you were unaware, the National Theatre production did manage to make "The Importance of Being Earnest" even gayer and today is the last day you can watch it for free on YouTube.

[mylittlemesseduphead]

it sucks how people dont let you talk about your psychotic experiences and immediately just go "see a doctor about that" or "i am not qualified to help with this" like i actually am not asking you to fix this i just need someone to listen to me because this experience is incredibly isolating and lonely and scary and no one seems to be able to deal with me when i really just need a friend. like why is it ok to talk about your autism or adhd struggles but as soon as it is psychosis it is chucked in the too hard basket.

[depsidase]

[sleepy-giraffe]

Oh no it’s one of my hyperfixations.

So fun fact I am currently in school to learn how to build affordable housing. They don’t teach you how to murder strip malls so I must learn this on my own. Someday the two will fuse and I will be an angel of death for shopping centers. This is my calling.

There have been attempts to turn malls into affordable housing. Sadly retrofitting commercial properties into habitable living spaces is usually more expensive than just making a new building. All that big empty space with uniform climate control is cool and all but it’s not habitable living quarters. you know what it’s GREAT for????

HYPER-LOCAL AGRICULTURE BAYBEEEEEEE

Indoor farming got a bad rep recently because it couldn’t become profitable fast enough to satisfy the capitalists funding it. But these places have loads of height for more space-efficient vertical farms, and while plants won’t need the blasted AC of most shopping malls, they probably do appreciate a steady climate (something that’s getting harder to find outdoors).

“But wait,” you say, “the food court has all those fully outfitted kitchens. It would be a waste not to incorporate that into daily living.”

hello????????? Literal farm-to-table restaurants that grow their vegetables right across the hallway are you KIDDING ME??????????????? (better keep that shit cheap tho no gentrification on my watch)

“But wait wait wait,” you say again, “how can it be *local* farming when there’s no housing nearby? Also this isn’t about food we need fucking housing????”

I hear you, man, I hear you. But you know what is right around a shopping mall? Acres upon acres of the most depressing use of land in history: fucking dog shit crusty ass empty fucking parking lots.

The amount of space these bad boys take up is STAGGERING, and it’s often enough to fit an entire neighborhood. Just check out what this one architect in Maine did to replan the Portland mall (they won an award for it):

*everything on that map that’s in color is currently flat cement*

One mid-sized mall in Maine can fit an entire downtown area WITH GREEN SPACE in its parking lot, and *still have room for parking.*

So yeah, the housing in malls idea is cool thinking. Think bigger. WAY bigger.

Think of all the space strip malls and their parking lots take up. Imagine all that space becoming housing and small businesses and third spaces and NATURE.

These stores are dying fast. The real estate is cheap as fuck. It is extremely doable within the next decade. We just have to fucking do it.

[isuggesteatingtherich]

i have a suggestion

[depsidase]

love this.

[scarlettohairdye]

This is probably a little too much nuance, but whenever I see a "all borders are violence" post (a political position I generally agree with!) I always add a little asterisk that says "*but the border checks that keep you from bringing homegrown produce into big agricultural areas to avoid the transmission of parasites and invasive species are actually fine and if we were more vigilant about that kind of thing maybe we wouldn't have spotted lanternflies in the states."

That doesn't work as well as a slogan, though

[that-house]

[that-house]

Try exploring the wizard's body

[drchucktingle]