How do you do, fellow kids? 😉

So much of haunted and spiritual tiktok is just dehumanising disabled people and it fucking sucks.

"A husband waits outside

A crying child pushes a child into the night"

I want to talk a little about this line, because this is the beginning of this song and it was a punch in the gut. I grew up on a very poor area, and it was also a very christian area, and i was one of the only girls in my neighborhood that celebrated my 20th birthday without a baby, all of my highschool friends were teen moms, my neighbor is a 17 year old girl who has 4 kids, she had her first when she was 13, the baby-father at the time was 20, none of them finished their education, they couldn't, they need to take care of their kids, the fathers have 0 obligations with their child, a lot of them moved on and are now married to somebody else, they don't suffer the consequences, but the girls have to endure the pain, they have to drop everything to take care of someone else and have this responsibility that they don't understand it, a lot of them died during childbirth, they have no ambition, they receive no help, they don't have any opportunities, they don't finish their education, nothing, their life it's over before even starts. That's how it's like to live on a country where sex-ed it's not available, access to internet or any form of information is ver difficult,safe abortion is limited or forbidden and religion fanatics rule the country. It's having to see news about kids who are 10-15 years old birthing babies that only exist because of rape, it's watching girls losing every single chance of having a good life because they didn't get enough education or the proper help. It's hearing people saying to kids who were raped and end up being pregnant, that they have to wait a little, because God doesn't want for them to have a abortion because it's "sinful".

I'm begging people to actually listen to what Hozier is trying to say, it's okay to joke about him being this forest creature, but there is a time for that, please pay attention to what is happening in this world, pay attention to what and why people are fighting for, this song made me feel so fucking heavy and angry about everything. Just stop for a moment and actually listen to what he's saying.

LITERALLY some of you don’t fucking know what “disposable income is” like i cannot stress ENOUGH that someone who was able to get animal crossing on day 1 of launch or a ps5 preorder that is still only working minimum wage job and/or cannot pay their rent on a monthly basis is NOT your enemy bruv they are NOT “the rich” like PLEASE cement that in your head. 

had to share @rykhafirehand ’s tags:

thank you for boiling off capitalist propaganda to get down to the essence of economics

i’d like to add: you are SUPPOSED TO HAVE DISPOSABLE INCOME.

you are supposed to have enough money for toys and games and vacations. that is what the citizens of a normal and healthy society should be buying without stressing out about if they’re gonna be able to afford to live the next day. you’re not just supposed to have ‘a little bit’ or ‘if you save up’ or ‘sometimes you can treat yourself’, you are supposed to have disposable income, and plenty of it.

Already seen a take like “People who complain about there being humor in the Persuasion trailer have clearly never actually read Jane Austen” and like… no. I *know* Jane Austen is funny. I love the Romola Garai Emma adaptation because it leans into it. That sequence in the 95 Persuasion of Anne being complained to by everyone about Mary and by Mary about everyone else makes me laugh every time I watch it. Jane Austen is funny, and I know it.

That doesn’t mean she is slapstick funny.

And an Anne Elliot that is constantly joking about everyone around her and not caring about their opinions because she is just so independent as to make fun of all situations is not Anne Elliot, not because I think there can be no changes or no humor in an adaptation, but because a fully independent Anne Elliot *would not have let herself persuaded to break off her engagement.* Excuse me, dump her boyfriend until he became her ex, of course.

I want to be able to laugh during an Austen film. I do not want that to mean that all tension is sucked out of it.

Look I clown veganism often enough but really, truly, don’t ever fucking feed somebody something without their knowledge or consent. It’s hugely fucked up and not OK.

also if someone hasn’t eaten meat in a while… or ever… they will get incredibly sick if they just start eating meat again.

|| Please don’t do this. Not just with vegans/ vegetarians, but with ANYONE you don’t know very well. You never know what they may or may not be allergic to, their abilities o(or lack thereof) to digest certain things, dietary needs and restrictions, religious beliefs requiring them to abstain from the consumption of certain foods and about a thousand other things.

Some people are legitimately allergic to thd proteins in certain meats and can’t even eat anything cooked in the same pan as X meat product/s.

I’m vegan but couldn’t care less if others aren’t, not an overwhelming number of (not all, just alot, unfortunately) non vegans find things like this funny.

Quick reminder: Sometimes people say “I’m vegan” or “I’m vegetarian” because its easier/faster/begets fewer annoying questions than the longer explanation.

As an epidemiologist I can list a few of the more annoying longer explanations that no one wants to have to explain to every person who ever offers them food:

- You drank water contaminated with giardia, which gave you 3 weeks of diarrhea followed by 3 years of lactose intolerance

- You were bitten by a Lone Star Tick and developed an allergy to beef and pork because the Lone Star Tick is a bastard

- You are Jewish and the meat isn’t kosher, but you don’t want to say that because antisemitism is A Thing and you don’t want to get bombarded with questions about the Middle East while you’re hungry

- You are Muslim and the meat isn’t halal, but you don’t want to say that because Islamophobia is A Thing and you don’t want to get bombarded with questions about the Middle East while you’re hungry

- You are on a restricted diet for medical reasons and don’t want to get bombarded with questions about your medical history while you’re hungry

- You are on a restricted diet for reasons that *are nobody’s business* and don’t want to get pulled into Potentially Triggering Diet Talk while you’re hungry.

Listen. Food can be very very complicated for people, and a very very very sensitive subject. Respect people’s food restrictions. None of it is your business.

I was one of the people who ordered something decaf at Starbucks only for them to have made it caffeinated and seem to have put in at least a couple shots of espresso and spent the day having panic attacks. Don’t do this shit to people

Also, even if it won’t harm them at all, if you respect people’s bodily autonomy then you can’t compel them to eat something without their consent (and knowledge is necessary for consent)

"A Jedi stan!" they say like it's an insult.

Yes, I am obsessed with people who have dedicated their lives to helping others, who always try to do the right thing, who teach that while it's ok to have emotions it's never ok to use those emotions against others, who teach compassion towards those who have none for others.

I am obsessed with people who never try to accumulate wealth or political power. Who teach calm and rational approach. Who don't ever make any difference based on gender, race, species, wealth...

Who above all else respect tiny green person for his kindness and wisdom. Who in turn keeps them safe regardless of their age or standing. Who asks tiny children to advise two Masters because he respects everyone's opinion.

Who respect other cultures and welcome them into their sacred Temple.

Who allow their members to leave whether they spent a few months as a Jedi or their whole adult lives.

Who value knowledge and accumulate it and guard it.

Who stay true to helping others even when they have been betrayed, slaughtered, abandoned, and slandered, when all their children have been killed qnd everything they held dear was utterly destroyed.

I'm obsessed with them because every day I am overwhelmed by human greed, cruelty, and selfishness, and at least in a fantasy I want to see the opposite.

If I'm ever going to be called a stan of anyone, I'm proud it's Jedi.

genuinely so fucking tired of people leveraging the "groomer" argument against people who support sex ed because scientific literature over decades shows that comprehensive sex education starting around kindergarten actually prevents children from being sexually abused and groomed because it teaches children the correct words for their body parts and also teaches them concepts of privacy, personal space, bodily autonomy, the difference between appropriate and inappropriate touching, and the fact that sex is something that only adults do. children with this knowledge are not only better equipped to identify abuse and predatory behavior and communicate that its happening to a trusted adult, but also prevent it from happening in the first place by recognizing when something is happening that shouldn't.

sex education does not sexualize children, it prevents children from being sexualized. anyone who is against early foundational sex education and claims they are doing it to protect children is a fucking liar.

@blueblazeselco i actually spoke in broad strokes so as to make the post easy to read and digest. i also literally linked a study that was a review by two doctors (dr. lisa lieberman, phd in health behavior and health education with a specialization in adolescent health, and dr. eva goldfarb, phd in human sexuality education) of 30 years of published scientific literature on school-based sex education programs, and thus didn't feel the need to go into excruciating detail, because i assumed people would take the initiative and at least read the abstract that's less than 300 words, or at the very bare minimum, the paragraph very clearly labeled "results" that mentions prevention of child sexual abuse as a positive outcome of comprehensive sex education, alongside partner violence prevention, media literacy, social/emotional learning, appreciation of diversity, and healthy relationship development. the data is right there you pompous fucking dickbag.

but here are a couple of key points, since you couldn't be assed to even skim it:

but if you don't want to take my word for it, or the word of two award-winning doctors and authors, then take the word of the sexuality information and education council of the united states, or the united nations (yes, that united nations) education, scientific, and cultural organization, who both have published guidelines for comprehensive sexuality education and both recommend starting this education in kindergarten and maintaining it through 12th grade for a range of positive outcomes including but not limited to what i have previously mentioned. as a fun side note one of the doctors who authored the review i linked in the original post (the review you didn't read) is credited as a member of the taskforce that contributed to SIECUS' guidelines.

in conclusion: kiss my ass.

since apparently there are some westerners going "oh so can't Ukraine just not try to join NATO?" or "maybe Poland and the Baltic States should just leave NATO so Putin doesn't feel threatened and stops the war"

no. hell fucking no.

you may be taking your countries' NATO (or the EU, for that matter) membership for granted but you have no idea how much it means for us. do you know how much effort it took for post-communist countries to even be considered candidate states? how entire economies had to be transformed? how, after over 40 years of communism, new democracies had to be established? all of that so we could be considered a part of so-called "free world". people out here died, were imprisoned and protested fighting for that - for democracy, for freedom. because they wanted the same quality of life that Western Europeans had.

NATO means safety, European Union means prosperity. i can't stress enough how important both of these things are for the Eastern Europeans, who's been living with imperialist Russia breathing down their necks for god knows how long now.

so yeah, Brian from Kentucky, it's not for you to fucking decide what we should or shouldn't do with our actual or potential NATO/EU membership

My Saturday beauty hot takes

This person gets it

Next time you go to write a ten year old child, please know that mine just gave me a fairly accurate explanation of fiat versus commodity currencies, in those terms. So for goodness sake, just have them talk like the adults they’re around most.

Also I saw a post yesterday that said that children under ten don’t understand sarcasm, and I assure you, that is not the case.

Some distinctive things smart children DO do in speech, though: Mispronounce words they’ve only seen in writing. Use what would be the regular form of a word that inflects irregularly. Start to express complex concepts and then realize they’ve walked into a grammatical corner and start over. Repeat things they’ve heard or read verbatim and then, on questioning, prove to not fully understand all the words expressed.

My 5 year old was talking to me about ethyl formate this morning, apropos of nothing >.<

Gen Z is awesome and generational fighting is bad, but I do sometimes talk to Gen Z folks and I’m like... oh... you cannot comprehend before the internet.

Like activists have been screaming variations on “educate yourself!” for as long as I’ve been alive and probably longer, but like... actually doing so? Used to be harder?

And anger at previous generations for not being good enough is nothing new. I remember being a kid and being horrified to learn how recent desegregation had been and that my parents and grandparents had been alive for it. Asking if they protested or anything and my mom being like “I was a child” and my grandma being like “well, no, I wasn’t into politics” but I was a child when I asked so that didn’t feel like much of an excuse from my mother at the time and my grandmother’s excuse certainly didn’t hold water and I remember vowing not to be like that.

So kids today looking at adults and our constant past failures and being like “How could you not have known better? Why didn’t you DO better?” are part of a long tradition of kids being horrified by their history, nothing new, and also completely justified and correct. That moral outrage is good.

But I was talking to a kid recently about the military and he was talking about how he’d never be so stupid to join that imperialist oppressive terrorist organization and I was like, “Wait, do you think everyone who has ever joined the military was stupid or evil?” and he was like, well maybe not in World War 2, but otherwise? Yeah.

And I was like, what about a lack of education? A lack of money? The exploitation of the lower classes? And he was like, well, yeah, but that’s not an excuse, because you can always educate yourself before making those choices.

And I was like, how? Are you supposed to educate yourself?

And he was like, well, duh, research? Look it up!

And I was like, and how do you do that?

And he was like, start with google! It’s not that hard!

And I was like, my friend. My kid. Google wasn’t around when my father joined the military.

Then go to the library! The library in the small rural military town my father grew up in? Yeah, uh, it wasn’t exactly going to be overflowing with anti-military resources.

Well then he should have searched harder!

How? How was he supposed to know to do that? Even if he, entirely independently figured out he should do that, how was he supposed to find that information?

He was a kid. He was poor. He was the first person in his family to aspire to college. And then by the time he knew what he signed up for it was literally a criminal offense for him to try to leave. Because that’s the contract you sign.

(Now, listen, my father is also not my favorite person and we agree on very little, so this example may be a bit tarnished by those facts, but the material reality of the exploitative nature of military recruitment remains the same.)

And this is one of a few examples I’ve come across recently of members of Gen Z just not understanding how hard it was to learn new ideas before the internet. I’m not blaming anyone or even claiming it’s disproportionate or bad. But the same kids that ten years ago I was marveling at on vacation because they didn’t understand the TV in the hotel room couldn’t just play more Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on demand - because they’d never encountered linear prescheduled TV, are growing into kids who cannot comprehend the difficulty of forming a new worldview or making life choices when you cannot google it. When you have maybe one secondhand source or you have to guess based on lived experience and what you’ve heard. Information, media, they have always been instant.

Society should’ve been better, people should’ve known better, it shouldn’t have taken so long, and we should be better now. That’s all true.

But controlling information is vital to controlling people, and information used to be a lot more controlled. By physical law and necessity! No conspiracy required! There’s limited space on a newspaper page! There’s limited room in a library! If you tried to print Wikipedia it would take 2920 bound volumes. That’s just Wikipedia. You could not keep the internet’s equivalent of resources in any small town in any physical form. It wasn’t there. We did not have it. When we had a question? We could not just look it up.

Kids today are fortunate to have dozens of firsthand accounts of virtually everything important happening at all times. In their pockets.

(They are also cursed by this, as we all are, because it’s overwhelming and can be incredibly bleak.)

If anything, today the opposite problem occurs - too much information and not enough time or context to organize it in a way that makes sense. Learning to filter out the garbage without filtering so much you insulate yourself from diverse ideas, figuring out who’s reliable, that’s where the real problem is now.

But I do think it has created, through no fault of anyone, this incapacity among the young to truly understand a life when you cannot access the relevant information. At all. Where you just have to guess and hope and do your best. Where educating yourself was not an option.

Where the first time you heard the word lesbian, it was from another third grader, and she learned it from a church pastor, and it wasn’t in the school library’s dictionary so you just had to trust her on what it meant.

I am not joking, I did not know the actual definition of the word “fuck” until I was in high school. Not for lack of trying! I was a word nerd, and I loved research! It literally was not in our dictionaries, and I knew I’d get in trouble if I asked. All I knew was it was a “bad word”, but what it meant or why it was bad? No clue.

If history felt incomprehensibly cruel and stupid while I was a kid who knew full well the feeling of not being able to get the whole story, I cannot imagine how cartoonishly evil it must look from the perspective of someone who’s always been able to get a solid answer to any question in seconds for as long as they’ve been alive. To Gen Z, we must all look like monsters.

I’m glad they know the things we did not. I hope one day they are able to realize how it was possible for us not to know. How it would not have been possible for them to know either, if they had lived in those times. I do not need their forgiveness. But I hope they at least understand. Information is so powerful. Understanding that is so important to building the future. Underestimating that is dangerous.

We were peasants in a world before the printing press. We didn’t know. I’m so sorry. For so many of us we couldn’t have known. I cannot offer any other solace other than this - my sixty year old mother is reading books on anti-racism and posting about them to Facebook, where she’s sharing what’s she’s learning with her friends. Ignorance doesn’t have to last forever.

I’d like to add:

“Educate yourself” is not the argument these people make it out to be. Educate yourself where? what source do you trust? John Doe the umpteenth on twitter is not a source, no matter how shouty.

What most people yelling “educate yourself” mean is, “check this social media thread” and... I’m sorry but that’s a terrible idea. Not all people with leftist ideas are activists - they’re just random people with ideas and no idea how to communicate and educate.

Actually not all activists are trustworthy either. A lot of online activism is based on popularized social sciences concepts and analysis, and it can be great (it really can), but it’s often the short version of whole areas of expertise. Areas where the researchers themselves don’t necessarily agree (which isn’t a bad thing in itself, that’s how we go forward).

So if you get your education from activists and them only, you’ll get a window that lacks nuance on a way, way wider and way more complex system.

Also: misinformation runs rampant in all circles.

Basically, being told to “educate oneself” is... very little help. Either take the time to explain, however briefly, or give people a vague direction where they should look, or don’t bother saying anything. Spare us the guilt trip.

That’s not to say nobody should look into social issues of their own initiative, obviously. Just be aware it’s not nearly as simple as some want to make it out to be.

As for the ignorant ones: it’s actually ok to say “I don’t know much/anything on this subject, and I sadly can’t dedicate myself to looking into it, but I support your rights”. If people are willing to explain though: might do you good to listen.

yall need to stop emotionally depending on celebrities and draw the line between admiration and obsession bc at this point, it’s very blurred for most of you.

they’re literally as much as a stranger to you as you are to them. don’t let how accessible they are bc of social media fool you.

Shit, are people really taking “men get pegged” as a serious measure of whether a guy is a Good Boyfriend or not?

I assure you earnestly. If your girlfriend tries to pressure you into doing that or insist that you must be afraid of being ~emasculated~ if you don’t want to, it is best to Throw The Whole Woman Away.

In general, like, what sexual acts you are or are not personally comfortable with has exactly fuck all to do with how feminist or progressive you are or whatever. Ffs.

It is a delightful meme but absolutely not an excuse to forget that men, also, get to make the rules about their bodies! and that is final!

pressuring your partner into doing sexual acts they don't want to is driving off a cliff straight into rape territory, so don't do it for the meme, don't do it at all

It is never, ever okay to pressure someone to do something sexual that they don’t want to. For any reason. At any time. (On a related note, it’s also never okay to use someone not wanting to participate in a given sex act to invalidate someone’s sexuality. e.g. “Well if you were REALLY X, then you would do Y.”) Your desires are not more important than another person’s bodily autonomy. Ever.

Look I clown veganism often enough but really, truly, don’t ever fucking feed somebody something without their knowledge or consent. It’s hugely fucked up and not OK.

also if someone hasn’t eaten meat in a while… or ever… they will get incredibly sick if they just start eating meat again.

|| Please don’t do this. Not just with vegans/ vegetarians, but with ANYONE you don’t know very well. You never know what they may or may not be allergic to, their abilities o(or lack thereof) to digest certain things, dietary needs and restrictions, religious beliefs requiring them to abstain from the consumption of certain foods and about a thousand other things.

Some people are legitimately allergic to thd proteins in certain meats and can’t even eat anything cooked in the same pan as X meat product/s.

I’m vegan but couldn’t care less if others aren’t, not an overwhelming number of (not all, just alot, unfortunately) non vegans find things like this funny.

Quick reminder: Sometimes people say “I’m vegan” or “I’m vegetarian” because its easier/faster/begets fewer annoying questions than the longer explanation.

As an epidemiologist I can list a few of the more annoying longer explanations that no one wants to have to explain to every person who ever offers them food:

- You drank water contaminated with giardia, which gave you 3 weeks of diarrhea followed by 3 years of lactose intolerance

- You were bitten by a Lone Star Tick and developed an allergy to beef and pork because the Lone Star Tick is a bastard

- You are Jewish and the meat isn’t kosher, but you don’t want to say that because antisemitism is A Thing and you don’t want to get bombarded with questions about the Middle East while you’re hungry

- You are Muslim and the meat isn’t halal, but you don’t want to say that because Islamophobia is A Thing and you don’t want to get bombarded with questions about the Middle East while you’re hungry

- You are on a restricted diet for medical reasons and don’t want to get bombarded with questions about your medical history while you’re hungry

- You are on a restricted diet for reasons that *are nobody’s business* and don’t want to get pulled into Potentially Triggering Diet Talk while you’re hungry.

Listen. Food can be very very complicated for people, and a very very very sensitive subject. Respect people’s food restrictions. None of it is your business.