I don't understand how humanity failed to domesticate the fox in premodern times. We domesticated the Cat TWICE (Asia and Africa) and the dog possibly also twice. And foxes are everywhere in eurasia! Surely they were hanging around humans since forever. Eating our trash and such

So from my understanding... the animals that get domesticated are SOCIAL ANIMALS. Those who naturally hang out in groups. They readily accept humans into the group when humans prove useful! But solitary animals - foxes, bears, etc - don't really give a shit about what humans can do for them because they just want to be left alone.

Yes, this includes cats. Cats are social with each other! They hang out in groups while feral / in the wild! (See: African wildcats)

And foxes, for all their other similarities to our beloved cats and dogs, are solitary )= they'll never want to be our friends.

The Shirley Exception

Thinking on this a bit more, and you know what? I know this isn't just a conservative thing but it makes so much since this is so endemic among conservative voters. Because ultimately this is what conservative politics seeks to establish: the validty of trust in authority.

Obviously outcomes matter to conservatives (with some exceptions for particularly evangelical "worldly outcomes aren't important, not covorting with sin is what matters" strains*). But as its primary mechanism of securing support, conservatism doesn't try to establish trust in the process** (liberalism) or the outcomes of collective action (progressivism). Obviously those all play a part, but conservatism's bread and butter is establishing the legitimacy of handing over power and control of your life to An Authority. That authority can be an institution, an individual, a hierarchy, whatever. But the point is establishing that it is a good thing to trust authority.

And that's what the whole Shirly Exception is based on. The idea that surely the authority is trustworthy, because they are an authority. Maybe conservatives will recognize there can be illegitimate authorities (liberals, progressives, [insert prejudicial category here]) who must have obtained their position through illegitimate means, and therefore their intent cannot be trusted, but the intentions of their valid conservative authorities can of course be trusted because that's just how legitimate authority works. Legitimate authority can be trusted, that's what legitimate authority is!

The idea that authority might not justly apply exceptions to the word of the law is straight up a violation of the fundamental tenets of the conservative political base. Hell, that's why they're conservative! Because they don't trust the legal process and its pernicious legal technicalities, and they don't trust the will of the mob. The idea that we need a trusted legitimate authority to protect us is the bedrock of conservatism.

*Obviously this is very present among some progressives too. These ideas are present everywhere, simply the focus of conservatism.

**Liberals are also susceptible to the Shirley Assumption of course; they might assume the process can't create truly unjust outcomes. I think this is a bit more susceptible to being shown the practical text and outcomes of a law however.

worst trope in the world is when a (usually) girl tells a (usually) guy all kinds of horrible things she doesn’t really feel in order to break his heart and make him go away, thus saving his life from some threat she doesn’t wish to mention in case he stubbornly sticks around.

it’s the worst! you’re treating someone like a child by lying to them, robbing them of the chance to make their own choices, and it neglects the fundamental fact that protecting someone physically by destroying them mentally is a terrible trade off, and really quite selfish, like oh you can’t stand to see someone get hurt so you’re going to hurt them really badly instead? wut.

every time I sense this in the wind I start glaring at the TV and squeezing the couch till it bleeds

shoutout to sailor moon season 2 for a gender inversion of this trope! please stop.

Try this easy "hack" to instantly do more pushups!

The Shirley Exception

Passed by a sign that said “bong recreation area” and immediately googled it and it became ten times better

just ripping fat doinks at Dick Bong State Park in Kansasville USA which is totally a Real City and not a completely fictional place from a Marvel comic

Richard "Dick" Bong was one of the most decorated pilots during World War II. There's a museum in Superior, Wisconsin, the Bong Museum (okay, fine, technically the Richard Bong Veterans Historical Center), which I've been to a few times: you get there from Duluth by going over the Bong Bridge.

He was an "ace of aces", and was called back from the war to sell war bonds, which he reportedly hated, and fell into a depression because he thought that his place was in the war. Unfortunately, he was so good at flying a plane that he had propaganda value, so they stopped him from doing the thing that he was best at.

It always seemed pretty sad to me.

Funny name though! The other major bridge connecting Superior and Duluth is the High Bridge. Bong Bridge, High Bridge, it's a local joke.

Captain America: The First Avenger was about a real person and his name was Dick Bong.

What I find interesting is that it's kind of the reverse.

In Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America gets superpowers, does a lot of war bond tours, and then finally goes to the front, where no one likes him very much and he has to confront the horrors of war while bonding with other men and proving himself to be one of the most effective fighters America has.

For Richard Bong, he went to the front where he had to confront the horrors of war, bonded with other men and proved himself to be one of the most effective fighters America has. And then, when he had broken records and racked up kills, he was pulled from the frontlines, made to go sell war bonds.

And Dick Bong understood that he was one of the most effective pilots in the entire Pacific theater. He was the best flying ace the United States had. He knew that his absence meant that other men would be flying instead of him, and he knew that they just wouldn't be as effective as he was.

So imagine a version of Captain America: The First Avenger like that, where Captain America goes to the front right away, fights alongside Bucky, becomes famous for his prowess, then gets pulled from the war to go sell war bonds in safety and comfort while his friends are fighting on without him. He's been benched after proving that he has what it takes, after he's seen men dying and understands what's at stake.

A lot of people, especially adults, are put off trying things out of fear of failing. Learning to accept and even enjoy being bad at things can often be the first step in a new passion.

For what it’s worth, I wasn’t one of those people who picked up a bow and was a natural from the start. I had overly mobile elbows, and my dominant eye and hand don’t match up. But that lack of expectation meant that I was able to do it the way I enjoyed it, without worrying about scores or results. And over time, enjoyment turned into passion, and I like to think I’ve developed some amount of skill.

But even if I was terrible at it, I’d still be doing this, because I love it!

why are yall not talking about the information yall don’t know? yall fake

Watch the people who haven’t seen this yet not reblog it

WHY DOESN’T THIS RELATIVELY NEW POST HAVE MORE NOTES, POSTS ABOUT A VERY POPULAR MOVIE THAT CAME OUT LAST YEAR HAVE MILLIONS OF NOTES

if you don’t reblog this negative, guilt-tripping, un-fact-checked post about something you don’t have the emotional energy to deal with, just unfollow me.

This is tumblr in a nutshell.

ugh can’t believe people are still acting like they need PROOF. google is free people

link to the shadiest most panic-inducing and disingenuous source you’ve ever seen

People often ask me about accessibility stuff when it comes to walkable cities so I’m gonna highlight some stuff I find to be cool

Raised intersections! These are intersections where the road gently rises to the level of the sidewalk, acting as slight speed bumps for cars and eliminating the need for going up and down ramps with mobility aids or carts

Level train platforms and user operated bus ramps! Ramps operated by external buttons and level platforms make it so that wheelchair and walker users don’t need to speak to a driver to access transit

Moped cars/micro cars! Miniature cars often used by people who can’t use bikes. Many of them are so small that they fit in bike lanes

Frequent bench placement! A walkable street is one with places to rest.

Air conditioned bus stops! In places where it often gets super hot frequent bus stop placement combined with air conditioning can make transit safer and more accessible to more people

Cargo bikes! Who needs a car when you can haul your stuff and/or dogs around in a bike?

Hey idiot that tagged this as radfem safe. I’m transgender. Mitts off.

the lesson I'm taking away from this election is not that the Democrats need to become more left wing or more right wing but moreso that they need to find a way to cater their rhetoric towards people who genuinly have no idea what is going on. the target audience for every speech and political appearance should be someone who doesn't know what the three branches of government are because they were drawing a Cool S during high school civics

political scientists have failed to consider the possibility that the silent majority is silent because they didn't understand the question and are trying to play it cool

There’s not too much point in talking about the election anymore, but I think some people are misconstruing the results. 21% of the American population voted for trump. He won the popular vote with polls only recording a 43.7% approval rating, and he has never held an approval rating over 50%, something that Biden and (arguably) Harris have. He lost millions of votes from 2020 to 2024, it’s just that Harris lost millions more.

All this is to say that there is not some ‘silent majority’ of trump supporters in America. While some people will definitely be emboldened in their rhetoric and action by the results of the election, Trump was a deeply unpopular president, and is shaping up to be one again. He will enact unpopular policies that are against the will of the average American, but that doesn’t mean every American is out to get you. Engage with your local community, check in on loved ones, and maybe even take a look at local political offices in the coming few years. If you dislike the two party system, volunteer or donate to a third party. It’s altogether likely we see another 2022 situation, resentment grows further against the Republican Party, and the midterms offer a lot of opportunity to alternatives, at every level of government.

It may all feel like the end, but it’s not. We’ve been through it before, and no matter what we do, hate and ignorance will bleed through the cracks in society again in the future. It’s going to get better, but that’s easier to say if we make it better.

'Goy' is a slur to silence you?

Dang, I wish it worked!

Shut the fuck up

Jewish person: Talks about his experiences with antisemitism without mentioning Israel

Goyim:

just a handy little info chart on the spectrums of sexuality.

[ID: a poster that reads "These spectra are all different." Below are four arrows, up to down, each labeled with a different sexuality spectrum.

Sexual attraction

Libido

Sex favourability

Sex positivity

Any combination is possible. Now you know these things exist. If you want to learn more about something, look it up.

End ID]

Certified Sex Ed Post!

i feel like sex positivity is more complicated than that, there's a few other axis of nuanced opinions there

Why’d Gil Snitch On Tarvek: Theories

Gil inherited a few things from Klaus. One of them is a tendency to avoid expositing. Among other things, he’s very closemouthed about his childhood. Because of this, we don’t know much about Gil as a kid or his mindset from Gil himself.

So why did he snitch on Tarvek about his intel stash and believe Klaus was right about him for over a decade? Some theories:

1. He’s Just Not That Into Him Theory

Why does Gil refuse to believe Agatha is the Other, but decide his father is right about Tarvek when they got caught looking for Gil’s family tree? Occam’s Razor (that thing can cut through anything!): Gil didn’t like Tarvek as much as he likes Agatha.

It’s hard to disprove it because there's no one else to scale Gil's relationships with back then except Von Pinn and Klaus, whose relationship with Gil is totally different. Gil didn’t know Agatha as long as he knew Tarvek at those points, but you can like someone you don’t know. Nothing requires Gil to have liked Tarvek as much as Agatha. Tarvek was Gil’s best friend… out of zero other friends. How much does Gil have to like and trust Tarvek to recruit him for the family tree search? Who knows. Tarvek is the one who cracked the safe in the flashback, and we don’t know if Gil could do that himself back then. The information they were searching for was something Gil probably wanted to tell everyone anyways. And they have their Paris interactions to get to know each other better in the future.

2. Klaus-Gil Dynamic Swing Theory

Klaus is always right… that’s something Gil doesn’t seem to have questioned before he discovers Klaus’ mistake with Agatha. At seven years old, Gil trusts Klaus’ judgment more than his own. At twenty-two years old, Gil is more critical of taking everything Klaus says at face value. He’s also got a whole decade of change and growth behind him. In Book 2 Gil and Theo have this exchange: “You sounded just like the Gil I grew up with.” “I’m not,” Gil said flatly. “Too many things have changed. I’ll never be that person again.” He smiled and punched Theo in the arm. “But I can remember the important bits.”

So it's a different Gil making different judgment calls.

3. Suspicious Sturmvoraus Theory

It’s Tarvek. Even when they’re on better terms Gil (and Agatha) are suspicious about him working at multiple purposes. Tarvek initially approached Gil to make him his minion at the age of seven. Tarvek also thinks that Klaus told Gil about Tarvek’s family, so Tarvek himself may have told Gil very little about them, or censored what he did share. If so, having a sudden info dump about their many sins probably didn’t help anything. We also don’t know what kind of schemes Tarvek got into where Gil could see them, but Gil does know that he got a secret hiding spot. And that he’s extremely good at lying. So he looked at Tarvek and decided yeah, he's probably lying to him.

4. Trust Issues Theory

Before Tarvek, Gil had really poor relationships with his peers. Or at least, any positive ones he used to have were broken off. Present day Gil is a very friendly guy, so it wouldn’t surprise me if Gil tried to make friends… maybe even succeeded… and then they fell apart. If so, it wouldn’t be strange if part of Gil was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Something made Gil want to custom-build his own, very dependent friend construct. Definitely not a surfeit of healthy relationships with his peers.

5. Perceived Vulnerability Theory

Agatha needs protection from what Gil can see in the first arc. She’s a female Spark in an Europa where they all disappear if not well-protected. He meets her at one of her lowest points and works to build her up. Their second meeting had him pluck her from her house after she got sedated. She gets more dangerous afterwards, but Klaus does a poor job at explaining things and is very clear that leveling the town she's in to kill her is an option. Tarvek is a prince and the son of a powerful Spark, on a ship where both qualities are enormously important to their peers. They may be hostages but neither felt very endangered by it. Book 4 also states that Gil had “done his best at the time to get Tarvek sent away”, which could just be referring to ratting him out, but could also be a sign that Klaus’ first impulse was not to send Tarvek back to his family, which makes Tarvek seem even less in danger. Gil thinks if he sides against Tarvek Tarvek will just get sent back home, where he’ll continue to be a prince… and how bad can that be? Whereas with Agatha he saw a little fledgling who was going to be someone’s personal property fighting hard to avoid that. They're very different perspectives.

I'm curious what other people's theories are, so please share if you feel like it.

so, i used to only enjoy driving on relatively clear roads, but now i kind of like crowded driving, as long as theres still appreciable forward motion. it makes it more engaging, more challenging. it becomes a game of reflexes, social prediction, situational awareness, all in one! sure its risky, but thats part of what makes the game work! its like the aztec ball game. the point is its risky, and its not all in your control. sometimes tezcatlipoca gets you in an accident. thats life man

Also, you are in a Specific Spot, which is where you are and where you are supposed to be, and so is everyone else, with strictly defined highly specific ritual dance moves to switch around. You don't need to try to keep your eye on barely visible if at all existent lines on the road, lanes are defined by immediately present easily visible actual other cars around you. You don't need to keep an eye on the speedometer, you just go with the speed of the car ahead of you with no other options. And if the traffic is moving at like 20 kmph that's honestly safer to do any maneuver than when at any moment some asshole biker can zip out of nowhere at 100 kmph.

And of course it's easier to keep your focus on the road when Something Is Happening and needs your reaction non-stop, with at the same time less consequences if you DO get distracted, because again lower speeds.

The only real downside, other than obviously getting to your destination slower, is that sometimes you realize you have to break the law or better yet have been breaking the law for the last several minutes because you're in the wrong lane and can't switch until someone deigns to let you pass.

(In Dnipro, which is where I live rn, there's a very fun intersection near a huge marketplace and also near the city centre where from a particular direction if you're in the leftmost lane you can only turn left. If you want to go forward instead even though it's illegal, you sort of can, other cars willing, but you have to drive over a section of the curb - around the streetcar rails in the middle - that curves out to the side into the road there inexplicably. And between the general business and the fact you turn left into there from the marketplace, well, I have both found myself driving over that curb multiple times and have seen other cars doing it)

(I find it fascinating in general how different cities have different informal customs around traffic rule breaking. In Kharkiv, which is laid out in mostly straight rectangular grid and has solid public transportation between different residential/office district and thus plenty of stretches of roads without much pedestrian traffic, Everyone Speeds, and I mean by a lot, but follows the lane layout more or less religiously. In Dnipro, which is laid out along a very much curving river, and whose "grid" as a consequence more resembles a mysterious 3D labirynth, people drive at indicated speeds - which, unlike Kharkiv, actually do change based on context - but everyone turns from whichever lane they find themselves in on like half the intersections, and this is actually pretty much fine and not that hard to sort out when you're actually there. I as a new driver prefer Dnipro - sure, the roads cosplay a roller coaster, but careful driving gets you everywhere, while in Kharkiv I have to exceed my personal safe speed to stop bring a hazard to other drivers, which feels worse)

So, something I learnt the other day. So, you know how dinosaurs supposedly can't see you if you stand still? Well that myth is based on real-life lizards/etc and how eyes in general work. So, once my dad starts infodumping, here comes some other cool information. We, humans, can in fact, also not see something unless it's moving. We fixed this by having our eyes constantly shake. And then our brain compensates for us, so we don't have to have shaky vision.

What if aliens don't have this? Like. What if they find out when one of us was looking at something in the distance, and they walk around this thing that's in front of them, and the alien is confused so they bob their head and oh, there's a thing there, but how did the human know that, and then we explain and they're like, horrified.

Humans are apex predators. They can hunt in packs. They can hunt in pairs. They can hunt on their own. They're persistance predators, which is unheard of. They get stronger when they're mad or scared. They have this thing called 'body language' which acts like a type of hivemind, even if they'll claim it isn't. And. They can see you. When you're not moving. They can still see you. If you ever find yourself in a fight against a human, for whatever reason? Run. Run as fast as you can. And hope, pray if you have a religion, that they won't follow.

ok thats a really neat concept but what do you mean our eyes are always shaking

If you hold your hand at arms length and look at your thumbnail, thats approximately the size of area your eye can actually focus on. Everything else is a composite image generated by your brain.

Your eyes constantly dart around a little bit to fill in the composite.

the scary part? when your eyes move, you go blind. Your visual system has to cover up the periodic blindness but it does it "backwards" from how you'd expect: instead of "lagging" vision, it shows you what you see after the blindness, but makes it seem like you saw it the whole time.

You can see this by looking at a clock with a ticking second hand. The first time you move your eyes to it, the tick you see will seem to take longer than usual. That's because your visual system lied about how long you saw that tick, because you were blind for part of the time you thought you were seeing it. (fun fact: we don't see the same thing with moving objects, but only because our vision system "fakes the footage" of them moving while we were blind, because it understands consistent motion)

The human vision system is a marvelous clusterfuck of hacks.

Human vision is so weird!

The bit about only focusing on an area about the size of the thumbnail at arm's length? Only partially true. That's the approximate area of vision of our fovea, the central part of the retina where most of your cone cells are located. It has the densest and most detailed vision, and the vast majority of your color sensitive vision is centered there.

But! The rest of the retina has most of your rod cells, which don't really factor into color vision but are much more sensitive to light than our cone cells (though they are much less densely packed than the fovea, and therefore less good at discerning detail).

One of the side effects of this for stargazing is that many faint objects that can be seen by the naked eye will disappear from your view if you try to look directly at them! The color sensitive cones clustered in your fovea aren't sensitive enough to detect their faint light, but the rods in your near peripheral vision just can.

This also means that most human color perception disappears at night!

this is something where it's really helpful to recognize the common ground with AI! they're ultimately the same processes of using thorough-but-imperfect algorithms to extrapolate and predict what to fill in

Ok but you say humans do this. Do other mammals? Do other animals? At what point does this appear in the evolutionary process / philogeny tree?

but if the whole planet is swinging around the universe at billions of miles an hour why do we have to individually add shake on top#are you saying that the vestibular system is so accurate that not a single wayward vibration gets through without our go ahead#and instead of giving that go ahead we just shake violently?

This is not about the vestibular system! This is about relative motion and eyesight resolution. All the forces we're appreciably subject to that can cause noticeable to our vision movement (such as earth's gravity) hurtle through the universe along with us, and also affect the stuff we're looking at equally to us. (There's also smaller stuff like the wind, but both us and the stuff we're looking at can easily remain immobile relative to it at eyesight resolution - technically everything's molecules are always thermodynamics bouncing around, but we don't see that small)