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[rederiswrites]

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.

[katsdom]

The above is doubly true if the content of the email is something that will be important to the person receiving - especially something that affects them negatively. They see that this thing that affected them so much didn't matter enough to you to write it yourself. I was a bystander to such a thing not long ago and it was just awful.

[fthgurdy]

RUDE!!! that is so very much it.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

If I may offer the lecturer's perspective on this idea:

Currently, it's marking season for us in the UK. I have an exam board in four hours, in fact, which is where we all go over every profile of every student on our courses, see what results they've achieved, and work out their "decision" - if all is well, the decision is to let them continue the course, or the final degree grade calculated if they're in final year. If it hasn't gone well, the decision is about whether they get to rework the pieces that failed, resit exams, repeat the whole year, or be required to withdraw.

And, as has been the case for the last two years, the profiles are now littered with plagiarism investigations. Every one of those - every single one - will have come in as an assignment that the lecturer received, and started reading, and then with a sinking feeling thought "This isn't your work." Every one had to go to an academic misconduct hearing. Every one is an enormous draw on time and resources, including the emotional reserves of the lecturer.

And I know that's not the main issue! I know in the grand scheme of things, our feelings aren't the most important part of this equation! But as we're talking about rudeness, let me explain:

Firstly, the work itself. You begin reading, you see it's AI. Contractually, we have to read it anyway, and give feedback on why it's shit, and what makes it bad, and that is absolutely fucking soul destroying. Most students who use AI are doing so because they've managed to train their brains to find reading something boring abhorrent, and they want to skip that part; but a ChatGPT-generated report is bland, vague, and utterly devoid of any passion, insight or personality. In short, it's boring. You simply passed your boredom on to us.

Secondly, regardless of your personal feelings about the assignment, it at least had a purpose. It was there to stretch you, and make you think about the topic so you could learn about it, and to test that learning so we can all make sure you have actually learned what you need to. But the slop you handed in, that I now have to mark? What's the point? Literally what is the fucking point of me marking it? You didn't even write it. None of the feedback I'm obligated to give means anything to you. I'm marking ChatGPT, and it can't read.

Which means, not only is it fucking boring, it's actively pointless. Ask anyone in the world what a boring but pointless obligatory task does to your mood. Imagine that.

Thirdly, the misconduct hearing. Because listen, again, the lecturer's feelings here are, once again, not the main point. Students who cheat like this aren't doing so because life is hunky dory. They're stressed and overwhelmed and struggling, and they think they've found a magic way out, and so being pulled into a misconduct hearing - where the best they can hope for is to have to redo the whole piece for a capped mark, on top of all the rest of the work they have (functionally, a bonus assignment), and the worst is expulsion - is a mental breakdown-inducing experience. That, obviously, is the biggest issue.

But, the lecturers know all that, which means we know what we're triggering if we do report it. I cannot tell you how upsetting it is to receive a slop assignment, realise what it is, and then have to make the call to report it. I know damn well how upsetting that's going to be for you. I know how stressful and painful that's going to be. I know this might mean you're going to be thrown out of university. In some cases, I know it means you will be.

I know I could look the other way to spare you that

And oh, that gets tempting. When things are really bad for you, and I see you struggling, and this is your third strike; fuck me but it's tempting to pretend that I can't tell.

I cannot do that.

Which brings me to number four: the soul-bleachingly fucking horrible ordeal that is the misconduct hearing itself. Most people are non-confrontational; I'm no exception. I also simply do not enjoy a sobbing, panicking student sitting in front of me, telling me about how stressed and scared they are and how they're terrified they're going to fail. But that's how these things go.

Our most recent example is an international Masters student. I don't know the particulars for him; but I do know it's not uncommon in his part of the world for families to go into obscene debt, often to loan sharks, to send their kids to UK universities. Failure means more than just academia for him. Having to sit through him turning white and quietly begging us to give him another chance before he left in tears he tried to hide from us was, obviously, much worse for him than us; but it was honestly traumatic. Even now, two weeks later, I can't get it out of my head. There's nothing we can do; but, I feel guilty anyway. I could have looked the other way.

(It wouldn't have passed anyway. It was terrible. But at least he'd probably be allowed a resit - we're still waiting on the outcome of this one, but he may well be withdrawn)

To bring this back to the point of the post:

I know my feelings aren't really the ones that matter here. I do know that. But, every time a student chooses to use AI to write an assignment, all that is what happens behind the scenes. My job nosedives into being shit. Whether it's reading the boring slop, having to write pointless feedback, or making the upsetting decisions to report it when I know what the consequences will be and then having to deal with the guilt, my job that I love suddenly becomes shit. And that, actually, among the many other things it is, is fucking rude.

[caspercryptid]

I would actually go as far as to say that MOST abuse is unintentional. I think most people will go through their lives without ever experiencing intentional abuse. People are abusive because they're selfish, because they're stressed, because they care more about what society thinks they should do than the impacts of their actions on their children and partners, because they think what they're doing is correct, because they've made it make sense in their own heads, because they think they can fix their victims, they think they can fix their relationships, they think they can stop you from leaving, they think they can make you a better partner to them, they think that means you need to do what they want. We've sort of constructed mental illness in a way that doing this shit to other people counts as a form of mental illness because it is anti social behavior in the literal sense— it is behavior that causes social harm.

I don't say any of this to excuse it. I think everyone needs to be more aware of this because if you think abuse has to be intentional you will never realize you are capable of abusive behavior. You will never realize you are being shitty to the people you love, because YOU know what you mean, YOU know you don't mean any harm. But you're doing harm. You need to pay attention to the impact you have on other people, and you need to do it all the time, Especially when you feel least capable of doing so. Sorry! You live in a society. Get your head out of your ass.

[jennyislander]

It's technically still Day 8 where I am so.

Due to Stuff, I could not post earlier. I think today I am going to toot my own horn.

In the summer, at my job, I get absolutely all sorts of customers, from muttonchops in MAGA hats to out-and-proud friends of Dorothy. It's policy that everyone be treated with hospitality unless and until they prove themselves to be ungracious guests. During my years here, I have had to tell someone to leave exactly once.

Between the people who just assume that everything is either for them or has no reason to exist, and the people who deliberately behave as though there is no question of their having the right to be there, there's a vast middle ground of just plain customers. But also, sometimes, there are those others.

The two men, or two women, who turn quiet and guarded only when they come through the door--I can see them through the window (while they can't see me) and they are free and easy with each other outside.

The tall lady with the high part and the beautiful pink travel outfit who speaks to me very, very carefully.

So I put a bright sticker on the back of my phone. One of my kids got it at a Pride parade. You can't see it when my phone is in my hand.

I don't need to know the details of anyone else's life. I don't need to know whether my guesses are correct. I just need to make sure that everybody realizes that all persons of goodwill are welcome here. So, while I give the standard orientation spiel, I casually pick up my phone, glance at it, and put it face down on the counter between us, without a pause or a significant glance.

And you know what? People relax.

It doesn't take much.

[stjohnstarling]

In light of recent events, I have begun submitting bug reports when I see mature content labels applied inappropriately to posts, especially if an appeal has been rejected.

[a-kind-of-merry-war]

Extremely good idea - how are you doing it? Through the contact us option?

[stjohnstarling]

Yeah it’s one of the options on the Contact Support form:

[sharas-bae]

for what it's worth: after a few months of submitting help tickets as 'feedback' when i saw a post inappropriately flagged as mature, i tried following this suggestion instead. today i got my first-ever response from tumblr support on this issue, letting me know that a post i'd submitted a ticket before has had its mature content flag removed.

[lesbianbloodritual]

The Ones Who Walk Into Omelas With Kevlar Vests And Samurai Swords And Desert Eagles And Stare Down All Those Wicked Unrighteous Sinners In Their Droves And Proceed To Totally Fucking Waste Them All In A High Octane Action Sequence That Kicks Insane Amounts Of Ass Think The Raid If It Was Directed By John Woo But When They Finally Get To The Door Of The Basement Where They Keep The Kid Oh Shit It's The Fucking King Of Omelas And He's Wielding The Cursed Obsidian Blade Of The Underworld And They Gotta Waste Him Too But He's Incredibly Fast And Strong Thanks To All The Power He's Getting From The Kid And He Kills Almost All Of Them Until The Leader Draws Him Out With A Double Feint That Leaves Him Wide Open And Cuts His Fucking Head Clean Off With A Single Perfect Stroke And Then They Finally Open The Door To The Basement And Free The Kid

[nochd]

#The amount of people in the notes going wow I like this story so much better. #Gee I wonder why that is. I wonder why you like a joke that reimagines a metaphor for your own complicity in the machine of cruelty #as a story where there are truly good people and there are bad people Who Need To Die to free a prop without agency that symbolizes the #weak you feel guilty about exploiting. #and from that shame you have constructed an identity around using violence to free the exploited from the REAL bad people #who are never you or someone you know or another person somewhere close but always The Other. The Enemy. #which is the default story told in american art and many empires across the globe. #Who can say. #Some little maggot in my brain: you think this fucks too you pretentious normie. #Me: well yeah because I'm a hypocrite. I'm just saying though.

[depsidase]

[ymfingsteadilyon]

Image description: Undated social media post by user @ OrevaZSN.

To be clear, I do not just hate generative AI. I also hate golf, lawns, space tourism, war, monoculture farming, clear cutting forests, building on floodplains, deep sea mining, developments that destroy habitats, and corporations bulldozing ecosystems for endless growth.

End of description.

[headspace-hotel]

There's a plentiful supply of nature and ecology writers that criticize "Anthropocentrism" and tell readers that we shouldn't consider ourselves more important than other life forms, and then they write things that are like "We evolved to live in Nature in a Natural environment...Long ago humans lived as hunter-gatherers instead of farming and domesticating animals...But when civilization was created, man unnaturally subjugated and modified plants and animals...Bringing them under human control for his own benefit...Man replaces natural ecosystems with artificially created "post-natural" environments...Now humans live in an unnatural environment that is separated from Nature...and i'm like buddy. do you even hear yourself

Since I have access to a bigger library now, I've explored "deep ecology" and "green anarchism" and "Biocentrism" a bit more and what i've seen is still kinda silly. The writers have very thoughtful theory and philosophy of diverse subjects relating to morality, society, power, and liberation, but...they just don't know very much about Nature.

I mean several things by that: first, they're not clear on the boring, practical details of things like food systems and the way construction alters ecosystems, second, they don't try to clearly define what "nature" is, and third, they act like "nature" has a clear definition anyway.

Now nature is pretty much undefinable anyway, a couple possible definitions are "all things that exist, have existed, or are possible in the universe" and "the thing that a forest has that a parking lot doesn't." You can say "biodiversity," but every space has biodiversity, and it's not clear how much biodiversity a space is "supposed" to have, we're just going on vibes. And the vibes are right, in a way; I visited an old-growth forest and it was DIFFERENT than any place i'd ever been in a way that is hard to describe. A flourishing, biodiverse ecosystem is different than a parking lot, a lawn, a monoculture field of corn. They say it's good for your health to be "in nature." What does that mean? At what point does a place become "nature?" How many trees does it have to have?

Something that is so painful to me is when people write "Human activities" as a cause of biodiversity loss. This is an act of cowardice. WHICH human activities? Name them.

A lot of nature and ecology writings treat humans like they have an anti-biodiversity force field that emanates from them. They write like lands on Earth are each contested between two inversely proportional forces, "Nature" and "Humans."

Without any more information, this is ethereal bullshit on par with crystals having energies. I am totally perplexed at the lack of curiosity about the specific causes and details of "human impacts." The division of habitats by so many roads and relentless speeding of cars with no way for wildlife to cross...the dumping of massive amounts of poison into soils and water...the wounding and disturbance of topsoil...these are the "human activities," but we can imagine a world without such destruction, and we can create that world.

Too many essays and papers talking about Nature non-specifically, an Idea of Nature, a Concept that everyone just intuitively knows. Nature is...you know...wildness! and trees! and...well, you know, NATURE!

And we do know! When we step out into the parking lot surrounded by low, squarish buildings and blaring signs and the stink of car exhaust, we know that something is very wrong with this place! Even we find these horrible un-places harsh and unwelcoming.

But it is very hard to imagine something different, because the other type of place, the place that is beautiful and soothes the spirit and is full of life, is by definition the place where humans only go to visit, the complete opposite and inverse of a place where humans work and live! Wherever humans live, shop, eat, fulfill their daily needs, that place is Not Nature.

The huge mistake, is that we believe that it is necessary to have places that are Not Nature. We believe that for humans to exist, areas must be set aside where the very concept of Nature is utterly obliterated.

From this imaginary and dismal point of view, we have to carefully confine our own lives to places that are utterly poisoned, sterilized, made into a hostile wasteland, and leave all the rest of the living biosphere to itself in pristine preserves.

And in this imaginary and dismal point of view, the one that divides Earth into Nature and Humans, it is okay to poison and to sterilize and to destroy, because humans must live SOMEWHERE, therefore Nature must be utterly excluded from at least SOME of Earth.

BUT...WHAT IF EVERYWHERE IS NATURE? What if the dandelions in the cracks of the pavement, the lichens growing on the park bench, the wildflowers on the side of the road, the sparrows in the parking lot—what if they are all Nature just as much as anything else? What if they too are sacred? What if it is our responsibility to see the connectedness of all life and to care for all ecosystems, however broken and hurt they may be?

What if Nature is not distant and abstract, untouched in some pristine place, but always reaching out, digging into the crumbled concrete and gravel and compacted ground, clawing to return to us and bring us back home?

It does not take away from the value of the old-growth forest or the unplowed prairie if we open our eyes and see even the scraggliest patch of overgrown weeds for the powerful manifestation of Nature it truly is.

Nature is not a place or a thing. Nature is the Movement, the Endless Happening, constantly alive throughout all life, the way of all things being family, the way of all things taking care of each other, the way of all life being constantly transformed through one another. You breathe the breath of the trees of your home, you drink the water of the streams of your home, you eat the sunlight that falls on your home, grown in the soil where all things go to be transformed through death into a new form of life, fed by the mycorrhizal network, pollinated by the bees, wasps, flies, and moths, nourished by the bone, blood and manure of beasts, and ultimately the fertile river valleys where agriculture first began, were replenished by the rich silt that washed down the river, which came from the forests in the mountains that shed their leaves to make a feast for a million decomposing critters, which is how the rich soil is made.

In this way they all take care of you, and in return you are asked to Live—to take care of them in return, to live as part of the great family of everything alive, to live, to live

What are human activities...? Deforestation? Mining? Spraying pesticides? Building housing developments? But is that all? Are we inherently a "bad" and "destructive" species, or is our ability to acquire and pass down knowledge, use tools and novel behaviors, alter our surroundings, shape ecosystems, adapt our lifestyles almost infinitely, and persist in almost any environment, simply incredibly powerful for good or for evil?

First of all, what better way to demonstrate a contrast to anthropocentrism...than to compare the impact of humans alone to the impact of an ENTIRE KINGDOM OF LIFE, the fungi????? Of course all of Fungi are more important than one single species??? Wtf?!?!?

But also, we should not convince ourselves of our own insignificance and worthlessness to the biosphere, because in the same way that individual self-loathing can be a way to avoid the hard work of loving oneself and advocating for the love one deserves, collective self-loathing as a species is a way of avoiding the responsibility we have to other life forms.

How can this author not think of a single role Humans play in the ecosystem?? What species plants trees, saves seeds, documents rare plants, rescues injured animals and heals them, raises orphaned chicks, manages controlled burns, digs ponds, thoughtfully harvests in anticipation of future seasons, mercifully culls in understanding of suffering that cannot be fixed? What species writes a new chapter in the genome of the American Chestnut so it can be saved from extinction? What species mends the broken kakapo egg with sticky tape? What species addresses their own habitat with that fondest name of Home?

[kayla-denker]

Hey, you, cis girl that's very (correctly) vocal about women being allowed to talk about their periods, do you include trans women in that?

I ask because every single time I've tried to talk about it to anyone that isn't a trans woman they get fucking angry. Which has caused me to have to just suffer in silence every single month. So I really relate to cis women when they talk about literally the exact same thing; being shamed by everyone around them their whole lives for talking about their periods, so they just suffer in silence every month as it negatively impacts their work and social lives. But I don't even feel like I can voice that I am literally dealing with the same exact thing because most of y'all react like you want to throw me in front of a bus for saying it, even those of you who act like your such big great transfem allies.

[kayla-denker]

I guess I'll take this opportunity to talk about trans women periods. The first thing any tme person thinks when they hear this is always "how can trans women have periods? They don't have uteruses!"

The answer is: the uterus isn't what causes your period, it is effected by your period. What causes your period and what causes trans women's periods is the same thing: the endocrine system.

HRT changes the sex of your endocrine system. Feminizing HRT makes it a female endocrine system, giving us a 28-day hormone cycle just like cis women. At the end of that cycle, the hypothalamus floods the body with prostaglandins. Those are what cause all but one of the period symptoms, because they make muscles inflame and contract. They are what make the uterus shed its lining, they are what cause intestinal cramps, they are what cause body aches, they are what cause headaches and migraines. The only period symptom not causes by the release of prostaglandins throughout the body is depression, and that is caused by your endocrine system simply not processing as much estrogen and from simply feeling like shit.

So, the only symptoms trans women don't get every 28 days is menstrual cramps, because yes we do not menstruate since we don't have uteruses. But migraines, depression, body aches, intestinal cramps, and the infamous "period shits" don't exactly add up to us having any better of a time. Except we have to pretend that we're fine and nothing is different because no one believes that we get periods, not even cis women.

"But you can't call it a period then because that refers to MENSTRUATION!" is another one I hear all the time. This is incorrect. You use the word "period" instead of just "menstruation" because it doesn't just refer to menstruation. It refers to a period at the end of the hormone cycle where we experience a host of symptoms. And not all cis women experience all of the symptoms that encompass the period. Not all cis women get migraines, or body aches, or have severe depression. If a cis woman gets a hysterectomy she doesn't menstruate either! In that instance she experiences an identical period to what trans women experience. Yet, I doubt you'd insist that cis women who've had hysterectomies don't have periods.

[kayla-denker]

Oh, another thing that I personally discovered after bottom surgery: vaginal odor changes for trans women during our periods too. I was not expecting that because I always thought it was just from menstruation. But nope, the ph levels of a trans woman's vagina are the same of as a cis woman's vagina, and it changes during our periods just the same.

[myriapoda-1306]

I'm really obsessed with bees and wasps, and last year I met a new friend in uni who not only was scared of them to death, but also hated them. Like really hated, she was the "I wish wasps just went extinct" type of person.

And this recently I was talking to her and mentioned her fear of bees and wasps. And she said: "you know, I really hated them my whole life. But then I met you and you talk about bees and wasps so much, they bring you so much joy. And it changed my view of them completely"

Turns out she just couldn't look at these insects in the same hateful way since meeting me. Not only because they bring happiness to someone important to her (me), but also because I showed her how cool, smart and important wasps and bees are.

Sometimes it takes just one happy nerd to change someone's views from hatred to respect.

[saltiecattoz]

you guys need to be kinder to people you don’t find attractive. it’s getting ridiculous.

i’m fat, intersex, and disabled. so many times if i hung out with someone, their outfit gets complimented but not mine (even if i that person literally picked out my outfit so its not a matter of me just not having a good fashion taste). so many times have people treated other people around me kind but their attitude changes immediately if they have the misfortune to interact with me. i don’t do anything to warant this besides looking different. i get treated like i’m not there or not human. it sucks.

i know this affects more than just fat intersex disabled people. trans people, people of color, women in general, but especially those who have any of these traits or even just don’t wear makeup. dehumanization can be subtle. but we notice❤️

[ao3commentoftheday]

In response to anon explaining how they use AI instead of a beta reader to teach them how to write:

I appreciate that you’re emphasising that AI isn’t something to be simply trusted, nor that it should be given any kind of writing. However, from the point of perspective of someone who writes essays on their stories explaining in detail how/why I made which writing choices, with the explicit goal to help others understand how I put a story together, it’s quite crushing to read that you’d rather go and ask AI to teach you how to do that.

I don’t mean to offend; I’m just letting you know that it feels very, very personal and hurtful. Because I know full well that AI can teach you that because I and many, many other authors have taken the time and effort to explain how our writing works and how we decide what to keep, what to cut, what to tidy up and what to expand. And our work has been scraped and used without giving us any credit, so you can ask AI how to teach you the same things that we have spent hours upon hours trying to explain to the best of our ability. Essays and guides you could have found with a simple search, no AI required, in a day and age where search engines tend to be very good and every good bookshop and library will have guides on writing.

Because that’s the other side here. I have spent many, many years trying to get to this point, have worked with beta readers, have read books (like The Art of War for Writers) and essays on the internet, have read books myself and made notes of what I liked about a specific author’s writing style. I have notebooks full of quotes from my favourite books and random funny, thoughtful, interesting and otherwise memorable statements people have made in my vicinity, that I have noted down since I was about 13 and pick up when I get stuck, just to leaf through and see if anything jumps out at me. Very often something does.

By the by, I, too, struggle with communication. I have no official diagnosis, but I am somewhere on the spectrum, and I’ve always struggled to understand people around me. Taking the time to observe others, note down what they said, remembering their reactions and then going and putting all of it into a fictional setting, trying to imagine what would have made a character say that, what would have made another react like that – then getting feedback from my beta readers on what I had written, has helped me learn ways how I can improve my communication and interpretation of what others are telling me.

It is profoundly saddening to me to read that your choice is to use AI for all of that. And it’s even more saddening that you seem to believe that AI is giving you the tools that you needed. Because the tools AI is giving you are actually the tools that I and others have been creating for decades.

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.

[ohmightydevviepuu]

something i think is important to add (bc i agree with the nonny here, in every possible way) is that what the AI is doing isn't even really--properly--teaching you anything but how to sound like the lowest common average of what it has scraped. it's not teaching you voice because AI doesn't have voice. it has the statistically most likely thing to finish a sentence based on all of the millions upon millions of words it has scraped not just from paid writers and professionals, not just posters like nonny here, but every story ever posted to AO3 or ff.net. you're not finding yourself or your story by distilling that into statistical likelihood and forgetting all of the millions of people just like you who maybe didnt know everything they were trying to do or how to do it but put it out there anyway.

the way you teach yourself to write is by writing. by being bad at it, and practicing, and still writing. by reading--fic, novels, nonfiction, essays, books about writing, poetry, whatever piques your interest. and one way you can get better at it is by remembering that writing can be a very rewarding communal activity ... like a fandom.

[aimee-maroux]

Something that saddens and baffles me is that some people seem more eager to interact with a chatbot than with other writers or readers. Even a friend with whom I have written something together said he finds the process of writing with someone else too difficult. I cannot understand this at all because I've had the best experience and arguably written the best stories when I was writing together with someone else, be it fanfiction or a commercial project. Another creative mind will elevate your story, if it's a collaboration or a beta reader. Ideas I likely never would have had without another person, nuances of a story or problems I would never have noticed without a beta reader's comments. Using a chatbot robs you of that creative sparring.

And to add to that: after NaNoWriMo partnered with an AI company and claimed chatbots / LLMs can help a writer edit their work, I actually tried this. The suggestions were neutral at best. There was not a single one where I would say it made the story better. It's also important that the LLM doesn't understand context or logic. It can't help you with the flow of a story, plot holes, or any such issues. As @ohmightydevviepuu said. it can't help you find your voice. In fact, it will poison your mind with its suggestions. I don't recommend using it for the plagiarism and other ethical concerns alone but it very likely won't even help you become a better writer.

[demonprincex]

Part of my autistic unmasking and self-advocacy has meant regularly masking for covid. Even though it's disappointing people.

Last year, I was planning a house show with my bandmate. I get that most don't think it's very punk rock to mask, even though that's exactly how I conceptualize it. (Bandmate has said that it's one thing to be in literally any other context with me, a person who regularly masks, and an entirely different thing to see a band on stage where only one musician is masking next to the others who aren't. It would raise too many questions—are they sick??—and look as if I were making a statement for the whole band, one it doesn't necessarily endorse.) Luckily for me, we've mostly stuck to studio work, where there's no audience and less judgement. But for this show, I decided to assert myself a little more and try to be the non-conformist person I know I am deep down inside.

It was my task to write up the invitation. Assuming that people generally don't or just wouldn't mask even if someone asked them to, I compromised and decided to instead ask people something like, "please rapid test if you're able or skip the event if you're symptomatic." I sent the draft to my bandmate. They responded that they were not comfortable with telling people what to do. They told me that they had never heard of events where people were asked to test beforehand, that they were worried that people just wouldn't come if they read that (because *they* wouldn't), and most importantly that I was being weird and controlling of others. They argued that the only way asking people to go out and buy and take a covid test would make sense to them is if somebody immunocompromised or like, someone with cancer were wanting to attend the event. I reminded them of my high risk due to my medical history. We went back and forth for days but never reached a productive compromise. The show was cancelled. The friendship and working relationship are also pretty non-existent and it feels impossible to move forward. It also feels like I basically have to choose between staying covid conscious or pursuing music, but not both.

I'm trying to work out whether this is all an opportunity to raise my distress tolerance over being perceived as difficult, as you've written about, get comfortable with disappointing and challenging people while sticking to my values, and hold my ground while I exercise some noncompliance with friends (even if it means losing that friend and a whole working relationship),

OR

If what's really happening is that I'm just trying to impose my political ideals, or expect "perfect" politics and conduct from people in my life when it isn't really fair to do so. I mean, I'm sure my bandmate (who I've always pegged as neurodivergent and is someone who proudly states that they are anti-authority), would also say that they're trying to meet their own needs just like I am, and even call how they handled the situation with me as practicing productive noncompliance with people in their lives.

Thank you for all your writing, I'm sorry this couldn't be shorter, and any insights you might have would be greatly appreciated.

oh my fucking god, your friends/former bandmate are being so fucking unreasonable and projecting so much of their own insecurity onto you! All that you have done is try to set a standard for yourself and make requests that people be considerate and COVID conscious where they can be; your friend, in contrast, has tried to control your behavior because of the perceived optics that it might have for others and to limit your words and self-advocacy simply because the idea of making requests at all to others makes them feel uncomfortable.

they are the one who is being completely out of line here, and the things that you were trying to do are completely fucking normal and common in the punk and queer music scenes here in my city. here in Chicago it is routine to see people still masking at venues and events, including performers and event organizers, and it is quite common still for more socially conscious and COVID conscious music communities to exist and to request the people either test or mask at an event. I was just at a performance at a punk house that required that everyone rapid test before walking into the backyard or the party! that same party also provided free prep pills, birth control, and narcan to any attendees that needed it. providing masks and requiring tests is just part of the same gesture of commitment to community well-being.

you are being brave and distressed tolerant by raising these issues. It does not sound like you are attempting to shame or control other people at all, and have been quite measured and flexible in making the request that you have. It seems to me you have done a fantastic job handling the discomfort of being around people who have a different risk profile and outlook on this than you and still retaining a lot of patience for them; In contrast they have berated you for taking care of yourself and them by masking when they have no right to control your behavior at all. I am so sorry that you've had such a dispiriting experience, but this is not on you. It sounds like you have handled it flawlessly. I hope you can continue to be a beacon of both understanding and principle and that you can find other COVID conscious musicians and performers who are willing to work with you to build the kinds of spaces you want to see.

[demonprincex]

I knew there would be a ton of supportive COVID conscious punks in the notes on this. <3 OP, please know that simply by being yourself, masking, and intentionally creating these kinds of spaces, you are making it easier for all of the disabled/immunocompromised and COVID conscious other music heads around you. you'll find your people. you can build something better than what this old crowd allowed you to do. they discouraged you from doing some really powerful (and yet also really gentle and respectful!) stuff. I think you're doing great and clearly from the replies I'm not alone.

[arahir]

i just can't convey the frustration and sorrow that it's been to grow up at first without the internet and then watching it bloom into this useful, fun, connecting force you sometimes spent time on, only for it to degrade into this constant oppressive waste of time and energy where people are constantly pumping out algorithmically designed content for max algorithmic appeal and even the most simple search generates either no results or an infinite abyss of ai generated slop none of which is usable or correct. we briefly had a library of alexandria and then fed it into a paper shredder so advertisers could sell a random mash of pulp back to us at a premium.

[jennyislander]

The days when the most niche topic you could imagine would have one to three exhaustively detailed pages, with citations, in the first page of search results. Some of these labors of love collated and indexed information in a way that was superior to all printed material on the subject.

There was already nonsense being propagated by ninnies--I could rant about the so-called mysterious extinct domesticated sheep of Pharaonic Egypt--but almost everything you saw online could be traced to a single person or a team, so you could check the facts.

[reddlesisters]

*talking about the contents of helpme.file*

Murderbot: Things I say in the shared working space stay in the shared working space!

ART: Murderbot 2.0 is part of you, it is the only one I told.

Murderbot 2.0: I needed help, Three is the only one I told.

Three: I told many, many SecUnits.

[blindbeta]

Hello. I wish to inquire about details on how to make a fictional large college campus accessible to disabled students. This issue occured to me when I was watching a video on how the X-Mansion in the movies is largely inaccessible, even to the principal, Professor Xavier who is a wheelchair user himself. I have researched a bit on the subject (I know the basics at least, such as making doors large enough for wheelchair users, ramps that aren't too steep, not placing obstacles near corridors, braille sign usage and pictograms, braille labels, clear out gravel on the floor, etc) Do you have any more specific recommendations, perhaps more into white cane usage?

A few ideas:

Braille and large print signs, maybe even tactile print someone who reads print could touch

Good lighting

Lighting under stairs/steps or high contrast steps if they exist at all

Elevators that talk, have tactile buttons rather than touch screen, and Braille labels

Tactile maps of the campus

Detailed maps and explanations of the communal bathroom situation, such as where are the sinks in relation to the stalls, how do the sinks work, where is the soap and how is it dispensed, how and where do you try your hands?

Buttons that open doors, maybe even doors that slide open and shut from the side instead of out or in

Hand rails on the walls similar to ones in hospitals, perhaps with lights under them?

Corners that are slightly rounded so as to avoid getting jabbed

[silas-lehnsherr]

I’m not sure this will make sense to anyone else, but Miki was a client. Arguably, Miki is THE client in Rogue Protocol. It’s Miki that essentially hires Murderbot, not the humans. It’s Miki that asks for assistance, not the humans. (Granted this is because MB implies it’s there as extra security, but still, the person turning to MB for help is Miki not the assessment team). But the fact that Miki is a bot obscures that fact from both MB and the audience. MB helps humans, protects and saves humans, so it doesn’t fully understand where the guilt it feels comes from. It’s not just that Miki wanted to be its friend; it’s that Miki was a client who died. In fact, it’s the only client in the series who does die. And worse, Miki died trying to help. Given that so much of MB’s identity is wrapped up in being able to protect and save its clients, no wonder it’s so messed up about what happened to Miki.

[artbyblastweave]

Being a henchman suuuucks dude. This latest guy I'm working for, the War-Madillo, he's got a, an Armadillo- motif, or theme, or whatever, right? That's fine, fine, I did a two-month stint with a Marmoset-themed guy once, it's not bottom of the barrel- except. Except. It turns out, he picked the Armadillo thing because he thinks that they're obligate carnivores. Which they kind of are, I mean I googled this, they're insectivores, but he thinks that they're like, land piranhas. He thinks they work in packs to take down significantly larger animals. He thinks they lay eggs in the remains of their prey. He's killed like three guys for trying to correct him. Me and the other guys are paying out of pocket to get the poor little guys in his Armadillo pit food that they can actually eat. Every time he drops some sucker into that thing we all have to draw straws to see who's gonna have to go in and gnaw on the body so he thinks the Armadillos are doing it. Thank god it's such a long drop

[oralhardwarestore]

382752488261 unique posts remain

[artbyblastweave]

listen, man, I don't appreciate this kind of pressure. I'm posting as often as I can. I spent this morning shoving store-bought eggs down a dead guy's throat. Some of us have jobs, man

[ymfingsteadilyon]

Fun fact, piranhas are classed as omnivores.