Sauntering Vaguely Downwards

Engineer. Sometimes writer. General purveyor of Questionable Life Choices and Bad Ideas.

[benjhawkins]

Every day I learn something baffling about Massachusetts

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

Holy fuck…. Every time I’ve said “by cod” or “my cod” or “cod’s work”….. this is that cod. This is THE cod.

[kaijuno]

People always gloss over how mentally damaging it can be to work in retail. I fucking hate that whenever I say “I could never work in retail again” someone has to reply “You snowflake millennials can’t take a starter job because you have to INTERACT with other people” No. Fuck you. I’ve worked as a planetarium host. I’ve worked as a public speaker. I’ve worked as a tutor and as a student teacher. I can work with people. I can work with crowds. Retail was fucking different. Retail was being treated as a subhuman. Retail was being treated so poorly that you have anxiety attacks before work. Having to work retail was a factor in my last suicide attempt. If I hear you say one fucking word about retail workers playing the victim I will personally break every bone in your body. Fuck You.

[dynamicsymmetry]

The holidays are coming up. Retail workers are going to be spiraling into a nightmare beyond human comprehension. If you’ve worked retail, you know this. If you haven’t, be aware of it. Please be kind to every retail worker you come across. Please be patient and understanding. It is misery out there.

[prismatic-bell]

Listen, okay.

A few years ago I went grocery shopping on Christmas Eve because I…frankly, because I forgot it was Christmas Eve. I’m sure a few people got a good laugh when it hit me mid-shop why it was so fucking crowded.

Anyway I went through self-checkout and halfway through my order it imploded.

Someone came over to help me with it and kept apologizing and after realizing this was not going to be as simple as them swiping a card and tapping a number, I said “would it make your life easier tonight if I just did the rest of my order through a regular checkout?” and the attendant said yes AND STARTED CRYING.

I want you, if you have never worked retail, to ask yourself what it would take to push you to the point that a friendly, neutral-value question would make you burst into tears. Imagine it, really think about it. And then realize retail and food service workers go through so much abuse THEIR LIMIT IS PROBABLY HIGHER THAN YOURS. Because they’re used to it.

Be kind. Ask a harried cashier if they need a minute to grab a drink of water. Offer them a smile. If the machine goes down, make it clear you know it’s not their fault. Nothing about your transaction will matter an hour from now—treat it that way. Let them breathe.

(Also, speaking as a veteran of the food service trenches, you know what made me feel A LOT better when I had an asshole customer? Another customer acknowledging that the first customer was an asshole. A simple “wow, who pissed in THEIR Cheerios this morning?” was enough to let me take a breath and relax and let it roll off more easily.)

[cuydulce]

I’m a professor now, so I deal with people all the time in a variety of contexts, and there is no way I ever want to go back to being a cashier, even at double my current pay (which would never happen of course because retail workers are not only poorly treated, they are severely underpaid).

[macmanx]

Can confirm all of the above, I’m never going back to retail.

[gothiccharmschool]

BE KIND TO RETAIL WORKERS.

It’s been decades since I worked retail. A few years ago Husband and I were shopping at a big box retail store; maybe Target, I don’t remember. What I DO remember is that the loudspeaker clicked on and “Jillian, cashier please” rang across the store.

I don’t know what my face did, but Husband looked at me, then got me the hell out of the store before I had a panic attack.

[findingfeather]

If you read "maybe it's not helping us if the only thing boys and young men see from equity-seeking spaces is how they, personally, are to blame for everything and we actively hate them and they're garbage, regardless of behaviour, their own experiences/situations/marginalizations, and maybe we need to address that"...

...and you immediately interpret that as "you're telling me I have to prioritize never hurting men's feelings" and so on....

....maybe stop and consider that there are in fact a range of ways to treat people and interact with people and even work for change that include more options than "any criticism at all hurts feelings and is not allowed" and "people who have a characteristic that is more privileged than mine in society can be rightfully subjected to anything I want to do or say to them and I don't have to think about the impact, accuracy or justice of anything I say, ever."

Like there are some other options here. Human communication and consideration allows for a whole range in between these two comical yet so often foregrounded extremes.

[findingfeather]

Further note:

There’s also a difference between someone asking you to invite someone else to your table as an honoured guest….

…. and someone saying that if you keep calling them a piece of shit at the top of your lungs, they’re probably not going to be motivated to sign your petition and or donate to your cause.

Like. “Maybe it would help if people wearing our uniform weren’t constantly out there calling the people we’re actively canvassing for electoral support Pieces of Shit all the time” is not actually. The same. As making everything about them. Especially when that part ISN’T A METAPHOR.

[miihoshi]

If someone's "screaming" at you that you're a bad person, it's probably because you did something bad. Revenge porn, sexual assault, street harassment, sexist jokes, etc all deserve to be addressed and criticized.

Treating people who criticize your actions like unreasonable, hysterical evil feminists also isn't a good way to make people empathize or work with you, by the way.

[findingfeather]

If someone's "screaming" at you that you're a bad person, it's probably because you did something bad.

Yeah that is….a categorically bad take. And one easily disproven by being on the internet ever.

I will note that you’ve actually demonstrated/replicated the exact extreme black and white take I’m saying is a problem here: Nowhere at any point did I say “we can’t criticize”. And the fact that when I say “maybe we should consider the impact of constantly saying things like ‘men are shit’”, you’re interpreting me as saying “you can’t criticize” is EXACTLY WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.

You can in fact call out revenge porn as the vilest behaviour imaginable…. without doing what I’m saying is probably a bad idea. Conflating that is something YOU’RE doing.

[tiktoks-for-dead-pope]

[simpleconvict]

[oldshrewsburyian]

#the fringe on those epaulettes really adds a profound je ne sais quoi (@preux-chevalier)

[homunculus-argument]

The paradox of tolerance is only a paradox if you think of tolerance as some sacred and unconditional moral duty. Some ultimate and absolute law with no exceptions, and if you ever slip into the sin of intolerance, you must repent yourself and beg for forgiveness. Yeah no fuck that. Tolerance is a social contract. You're in the game as an equal player for as long as you play by the same rules as everyone else, and if you don't, your ass is fucking out. You're not entitled to the same respect you won't give others.

"Oh so you all tolerate each other just because you tolerate each other, but if I want to destroy you, then all of a sudden you want to destroy me?" Literally yes. That's the gist of it. What's not clicking. This equation is so simple it barely counts as math.

[beka-tiddalik]

"I refuse to sign the social contract if it means I have to be polite to people I don't understand" said the bigot

"Well then you aren't protected by the terms and conditions" says everyone who has signed

[wiisagi-maiingan]

The upside is that there was an absentee ballot recount in our most populated and very blue county and it pushed us over for a blue Senate win. So yay for that because I was fucking miserable seeing the Republican win there too.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

Btw, this is another reason to call your county clerk and make sure that your absentee ballot was counted! Even if we get another Trump presidency, which is very likely, those absentee ballots make a huge difference when it comes to the Senate, the House, governors, and other federal and state officials who can completely change the balance of their governments. My state's electoral votes may be going to Trump and the majority of the elections went red, but we still got a Dem Senator and that win still means a lot.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

Reblogging this for the day crowd. Even if you don't think your ballot is enough to help sway the presidential election, there are still so many elections happening that CAN be changed with a recount.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

Someone in the tags said that they couldn't find out the race that this was about but hoped it was true so, I'll be a bit stupid.

This post was about the Wisconsin Senate election. It was initially Eric Hovde (R) who was declared the winner and then Milwaukee did an absentee ballot recount and it put Tammy Baldwin (D) just barely over the top. This is a MASSIVE win for Wisconsin, especially with so much of the state being red, and for the rest of the country to have another Dem in the Senate. And it happened because of an absentee ballot recount.

So yeah. There is the tangible proof you need that recounts DO make a difference and are worth demanding, especially in situations where polling places were closed due to threats or a bunch of absentee ballots were conveniently declared ineligible.

[pilferingapples]

Source, for those wondering! it's true!

[ocies-sideblog]

One more thing before I go bury myself in a pile of blankets:

To everyone who voted Democrat for the first time, every former trump supporter who voted for Harris, everyone who voted for the first time, every Republican who did not want this result and voted for Harris, thank you.

I got a text from my cousin who has voted third party for decades who voted for a Democrat for the first time yesterday.

My aunt who voted for trump in 2016 and who's husband is a proud MAGA sent me a Snapchat late last night saying she is one of the women who secretly voted for Harris.

A former friend from college who used to be deep in the Republican party posted on Facebook yesterday that he voted for Harris.

I know you aren't the only ones.

I see that you tried.

[luigicat117]

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[aqueous2]

As a 30 year old man who escaped the Alt-right pipeline, you're not going to be happy about the answer.

All I hear from leftists is how much they hate me for my immutable traits, how much they blame me for everything wrong with the world, how much they want me and everyone who looks like me dead.

Whereas Alt-right types would call me "brother" and welcome me into their ranks so long as I hated the right ways.

Do you understand the difference?

I'm an ally and support equality because I feel it's the morally correct choice to make, but holy fuck is it difficult to reconcile that with the fact that means fighting for a lot of people who see you as the scum of the earth.

[moniquill]

Read this and then read it again and then read some fucking bell hooks because this is a legitimate problem on the left.

"To create loving men, we must love males. Loving maleness is different from praising and rewarding males for living up to sexist-defined notions of male identity. Caring about men because of what they do for us is not the same as loving males for simply being." - bell hooks, The Will to Change https://bellhooksbooks.com/product/the-will-to-change/

[ultranos]

I recently read Naomi Klein's Doppelganger, and in it, she recollects how she spent over a year forcing herself to listen to Steve Bannon's podcast in an attempt to figure out why the person people often confuse her with (Naomi Wolf) went from feminist to hard-right.

First of all, let's acknowledge the commitment to research because yikes. But second, she notes that this is a long time problem of the left to infight and now a rise of purity metrics. Meanwhile, the right has seen this and responded exactly as the above posters mentioned: they've opened their arms to go "come to us, we understand you, we know you've had things hard too, we care about you".

It's not a matter of if it's true or not. It's just a lot easier to listen to the side that appears to be listening sympathetically over the one telling you exactly how bad you are all the time.

We know the actual statistics about how much more dangerous life is if you're a woman, if you're trans, if you're a PoC, if you're disabled or neurodivergent, etc. I am not arguing those. We know cis white dudes are playing life on easy mode. But "not coddling" =/= "tearing down with no intention of building back up".

The point here is, and the point Klein makes, is that the left is never going to fix this problem and will even keep hemorrhaging people as long as we think telling allies exactly how evil/bad/wrong they are and infighting is the same as fighting the actual problems while the right is offering community and togetherness.

The right flipped the goddamned script and people need to wake up to that fact that the rhetoric they are using is now being used against them to radicalize.

[ultranos]

If I read another take along the lines of "Harris lost the election because she started swinging right" without acknowledging the fact that the right fucking votes consistently while the left does not, so it's a matter of chasing a unicorn herd that demands the moon or a reliable source of votes right there if only they could be diverted, I am going to fucking scream.

[what-eats-owls]

So there's something I want to say re: intentionally withholding your vote, and I want to do it without coming across as condescending or dismissive.

I've worked as a field organizer in two campaigns, 2010 and 2012, and my job was to help turnout the vote for Democratic candidates up and down the ticket. Technology may have changed, but people are still knocking on doors for specific voters the way they were 12 years ago.

If you say you're not voting/voting 3rd party, the campaign volunteer is supposed to mark that and move on. Their job, in the final month of the election, is to make sure the campaign's supporters have all the information and resources they need to cast a vote.

They aren't collecting data on why you're withholding your vote. They aren't submitting opinion polling results to the campaign. Something like 155 million people voted in the 2020 election, and if you say you're not voting, the campaign is not going to waste a volunteer's time and morale begging you to vote when there are literally millions of other voters to turn out.

Let me repeat that: The campaign does not track why you're not voting. They simply note your vote is not a priority for turnout and move on.

I say this because I see a lot of promotion of non-voting like that's a boycott, when the function is not the same. A boycott is a coordinated mass refusal to engage with an institution—which sounds similar if you see a vote as a good or service to withhold. Unfortunately, it's not.

A vote is a choice you're making as part of a community hiring committee. Your abstention doesn't prevent someone from being hired. It just lowers the threshold for the worst candidate to succeed.

All this to say: In my direct experience as an organizer, abstaining from the vote sends a message. That message is not "You need to try harder to win my vote." It's "Don't waste time on me."

[ultranos]

Everyone who thinks it's some kind of progressive cred to withhold your vote or protest vote in the current US federal system, I say to you with all sincerity: capitalism has completely rotted your brain.

Not voting is not a boycott.

The US federal system is a First Past The Post for voting. It is majority takes all. It is not Ranked Choice. It is not a Parliamentary system either.

In FPTP, there's an entire theory of Lesser Evil Voting, because LEV means collectively throwing behind the person you think you can beat in policy and actions after the election. Pick your conditions.

Not voting just lowers the threshold for a winning number. Not voting just makes the conditions worse for you.

If you want to seriously have an impact on the systems you want to change, you need to understand how they work. You can't just go based on what you want to be true or what feels true. Even when it sucks. You have to figure out how they work if you want to use them to fix things, where what power you do have can be used to the most impact.

Voting is the responsibility you have if you want to live in a democratic society, imperfect as it is. If you don't want to vote, you're just saying you're fine with choices being made for you.

[jewish-sideblog]

Goyim love to say things like, “How did people let the Holocaust happen?” And there are a lot of possible answers to that question. Some believe that the average citizen of the Nazi Empire simply didn’t know about the camps. Others say that the average citizen opposed the regime, but they were deterred by their government or the fear of being killed. And some believe that it was some kind of perfect storm or one-time-glitch, that those people from that place just happened to be uniquely predisposed to evil, and that it can never happen again.

This is almost always accompanied by some variation on the phrase, “If I had been there, I wouldn’t have.”

Not even a hundred years later, Jews across the world are being targeted for destruction by both White Supremacists and Jihadist Islamists. Both weaponize the same ideologies and tactics that the Nazis used, and both happily embrace the Nazi legacy. Both are emboldened, not disgusted, by the nearly unprecedented increase in antisemitic hate crimes. They are openly calling for our death in our streets and our subways and our political offices.

And yes, in some countries, they are met with opposition by the average citizen. In some countries, decent and caring and inclusive people stand up for us. And in some countries, they win. But not all the time. When they lose, you have to reconcile with the truth:

The Holocaust didn’t happen because the average person in Eastern Europe failed to stop the Nazis. The Holocaust happened because the average person in Eastern Europe was a Nazi. And if the average person is a Nazi in any other nation, at any other time, it will happen again.

[jewish-sideblog]

And let’s be clear here about what exactly the US Presidential election results mean. Because as of current writing, this was not a spoiled election. There is no swing state that Harris would have won even if she had gotten all of Jill Stein’s votes. And this wasn’t a close race. Donald Trump is on track to win every swing state. This wasn’t even an Electoral College issue. Donald Trump won the popular vote.

As of writing, under 65% of eligible voters turned out for this election. And 51% of those voters chose the white supremacist felon who praises Hitler and said he’d be a dictator on day one. Which means that about seventy percent of the population of the United States either voted for a fascist, or is comfortable being complacent with fascism.

The average person in the United States is a fascist.

[ultranos]

Voting is a choice. Not voting is also a choice.

It's also functionally identical to "I agree with both/the worst possible option".

Not voting wasn't a protest against fascism. It was a choice of compliance.

[brandonlees]

Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth

V FOR VENDETTA 2005, dir. James McTeigue

[mythica-ithaca]

“We won’t be able to organize/ protest under Trump”.

People in the Global South have been organizing and protesting under dictatorships that America has installed as puppets for decades. You will be fine.

[ultranos]

I have a very good friend who worked for the Dems. His parents are from Taiwan, having fled the CCCP. Do you want to know the first thing he told me this morning, when things became clearly bleak?

"Do not comply in advance."

[thebluestcowboy]

We’re going to hear a lot of stupid bullshit over the next few days/months/years about how Harris/the Democrats failed to win over men, or young people, or uneducated voters, or those worried about the economy, or whatever….but the truth is this: this country hates women and minorities; its citizens understand fuck all about the economy; and the people are incredibly susceptible to outright lies, scams and fascist values

[ultranos]

At its core, the election was a simple, binary choice between fascism and anti-fascism.

One side offered hate, anger, authoritarianism, violence, and derision for rule of law and other people and no room for people who disagreed with them. The other side offered joy and a big tent where people could disagree on issues but agree on the fundamental idea of democracy and people having value because they are people.

That was the choice. That's why there was the open hand to people Democrats are traditionally opposed to, not "pandering to the right". Not in the usual sense. It was trying to make the biggest of big tents, once it became clear they had to.

It was asking the question: "do you believe in the US that tries to live up to the values it says it was founded on, or do you want the US that lives down to the sins it was actually founded on?"

It's not wrong to want the former. But the latter has always been there.

[nem23]

[nonepronounwithleftboy]

translation:

panel 1: the triangle machine is acting up

panel 2: im paid 9.11€ per hour with tax so circle it will be and fuck you

[geminisee]

a collection

[tributary]

average conversation on tumblr.edu

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

This is a genuine conspiracy theory and I'm very sad about it because when I first heard it I thought it was funny and charming and harmless. And then I looked into it and you'll never guess who its believers think is to blame

[brainless-out-deactivated201812]

This is so relatable, I’m dying.

[the-real-seebs]

“why would i do that” because the less-bad person will kill fewer people, you fucking idiot.