Artemis

I'm a bisexual anti-capitalist, artist, & aspiring propagandist. We're not free until we're *all* free.

Guillermo del Toro fan account. Anarchist pep-talks are provided free of charge. Solidarity forever!

Profile pic & banner are images of GI Robot from Creature Commandos

#nobot

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Last Notes

2026-06-05 19:48:32 UTC

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@nprofile…rcnq
I believe the thing that most recently caught my attention was watching a movie where British people were pronouncing certain Hindi words & it was really jarring to hear them spoken that way.
I wouldn't expect an American to pronounce them correctly. I would expect an American to pronounce them using the "foreign language pronunciation rules."

2026-06-05 19:44:50 UTC

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@nprofile…rcnq
It's more of an affectation used to indicate "this is a foreign word," not a serious attempt at correct pronunciation.

2026-06-05 19:42:14 UTC

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@nprofile…rcnq
There's a fuzzy area when it comes to words passing into the lexicon. Is "croissant" a French word or is it an English word derived from French?
But again, it's not about correct pronunciation at all. It's a feature of spoken American English that people tend to pronounce non-English words using a different set of pronunciation rules than they use in their ordinary speech. One feature is lengthening vowels, for instance "a" will frequently be long instead of short.

2026-06-05 16:51:55 UTC

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What *always* throws me for a loop watching British TV & movies is how people tend to pronounce non-English words as if they were just ordinary English words. Zero thought into how someone else would pronounce it.
Unfortunately I'm having a hard time thinking of examples off the top of my head, even though it happens all the time.
I don't know what caused that difference to develop, & I don't necessarily have an opinion about it, but I have to admit that to my American ear, it sounds so rude.

2026-06-01 15:55:46 UTC

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Is thinking about your death a "bad thought"?
Are people really trained to shut down reflections on the most basic facts of life as though there is something wrong or dangerous about contemplating simple reality?
Who is telling people that thinking about those things is bad, & how do you get people to stop chasing away every uncomfortable thought once they've learned the habit? Can we create a culture where it's normal to be aware of our own impermanence? Or is that too much to ask?

2026-06-01 15:51:04 UTC

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A lot of people just constantly shove down all their unpleasant thoughts & ignore all their uncomfortable questions, huh?
Is this how it goes? "Hmm. I wonder what will happen when I die. What does it even mean to die? What remains of us afterwards? Wait! That's a bad thought. Don't think about that!"

2026-06-01 15:46:23 UTC

If you're able to acknowledge that we all age & die eventually, congratulations! You are ahead of most people, it would seem.
The amount of denial people have about aging is absolutely wild. If you've been watching people get old your whole life, how have you not been mentally preparing yourself for this reality in your own life?
Why don't we learn to handle change & death, given that these are constants in all of our lives? Time passes, things change, & all living things eventually die.

2026-05-21 15:29:32 UTC

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I sometimes see people say "I can't practice mindfulness because I have ADHD", & while I don't show up in their mentions telling them they are doing it wrong, it often seems like they feel that way because they have been poorly taught, which saddens me.
It is NOT true that having a busy brain that responds to all kinds of stimuli (& creates its own stimuli when not enough is available) means you can't practice mindfulness in a beautiful & beneficial way. You may benefit from it more than many.

2026-05-21 15:19:57 UTC

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Mindfulness is a practice. It's something you do actively, not a passive state of mind. When you do it, you improve your capacity for it even more.
It's fine if the practice of mindfulness is not for you. That's your choice, but if you *do* want to practice mindfulness but feel like you fail at it, give yourself some grace & let go of the self-judgment. Even when you are "failing" at it, you are participating in the practice.
Recommended reading: You Are Here by Thich Nhat Han.

2026-05-21 15:13:34 UTC

I think I got this from Pema Chodron, but it is also related to teaching from Thich Nhat Han.
If you are practicing mindfulness, then one of the things you will become aware of is how much thinking you do that pulls you out of the present moment. You are being mindful of *yourself* when you perceive that. You are observing yourself without judgement or anger.
You label the thoughts "thinking" & allow them to pass. That's part of the practice, not a failure.

2026-05-20 12:33:09 UTC

So we *really* need to come up with solutions to make the living Internet (the part with real people) navigable, huh?
This isn't just obnoxious. This is an effort to make sure you don't find anything on your own or stumble into anything unexpected.
I used to be an expert at using Google to find stuff, but it's been years since any of that worked.

2026-05-19 17:18:02 UTC

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So I think that's kind of the sticking point. If I'm really unmasking, then I'm not going to be predictable. I'm going to have different energy sometimes.
It's not so much that I fear that unmasking through the PMDD symptoms would make me an asshole. I'm more afraid of being a disappointment & a "bummer".

2026-05-19 17:18:02 UTC

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I think one of the struggles I have here is that I kind of HAVE tried this in the past, but if people expect the "Tigger" version of me at their social event & I show up with distinct "Eeyore" energy, it seems to really disappoint.

2026-05-19 17:10:40 UTC

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I think I do try to give people a consistent experience of me even though as mentioned in this thread, I don't actually have a consistent experience of myself.
I don't know what it would mean to stop forcing myself into that. Could I just be quiet & moody for a week & a half out of every 4 as long as I'm not a dick to anyone?
Is it ok to not be ok?

2026-05-19 17:05:35 UTC

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Normally I disguise this quite well & people only occasionally get glimpses of how I'm feeling. Now I feel like if I continue with the "being myself" thing, I'm about to become very unpleasant. I don't want to carry the load of disguising everything I feel & experience, but how do I let go of that when at least 1/4 of the time I feel that I'm easily annoyed & reactive?
Maybe it will be easier & I will experience less distress if I don't mask my way through it though? Maybe?

2026-05-19 12:41:41 UTC

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"different than California = east coast" is an assumption that *really* irritates me because it's just pure erasure of anyone you consider beneath your notice.
Again, is anyone actually *surprised* that many people in the middle of the country view the folks who forget they exist with suspicion? Is it shocking that this attitude breeds resentment & distrust when it sounds like you're saying that their existence is completely meaningless to you?

2026-05-19 12:34:39 UTC

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That's what makes me go "what is that?"
How could you possibly *really* know what may be distinct about your region if you don't have any awareness of other regional cultures? Aren't you missing some vital information?
But then again, painting all of California with one brush is already a MASSIVE generalization & a conflation of different regional cultures, itself. California is a big state with distinct regions.

2026-05-17 21:48:45 UTC

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Trump's ICE army has been terrorizing our cities for more than a year.
Government thugs abduct people off the fucking street & beat anyone who tries to do anything about it. My brother dedicated several weeks to helping feed & protect his neighbors, & I was absolutely terrified for him the whole time. It could have been him getting shot.
Is it that hard to understand that we are NOT safe, & we are NOT free? (& it was already a police state before Trump got his hands on it for god's sake)

2026-05-17 21:40:24 UTC

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I mean, did you miss the part earlier THIS YEAR where government agents shot a guy on the street for trying to check if someone being assaulted by the thugs was ok?
They went through Minneapolis not just beating, abducting, & killing people, but also doing property damage & stealing shit along the way because the president wanted to punish the state for not being subservient enough. He wanted to make Minnesotans pay.
But you would simply fix this if you were a US citizen? Uh-huh.

2026-05-17 21:23:02 UTC

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But I presume these people are not angry about injustice but angry that they personally feel that their safety (& finances) are threatened.
There doesn't seem to be any compassion in this perspective. Just anger & self-righteousness. No practical advice either, which you'd think if it was so easy & obvious, they could provide.

2026-05-17 21:19:12 UTC

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I want to say to them: so you're European? Then take some time to figure out if the wealth of your particular nation comes from colonized & enslaved people elsewhere in the world. Find the corruption & exploitation in your system. Then I guess you should figure out how to fix that, since you're such a genius. Report back once you're finished.

2026-05-14 17:00:46 UTC

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@nprofile…hw75
This is some real reply guy nonsense.
You're in my mentions picking a fight about something unrelated to what I was talking about.
Check my bio & you'll see I'm an anarchist. So yeah, this whole "you'll learn in time that authoritarian governance is good actually," is a pretty pointless thing to tell me. I'm not interested.
I could tell you what anarchy means for creating justice & equity for all, but you're not here to listen to me, so it's not really worth my time, is it?

2026-05-14 16:53:59 UTC

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@nprofile…hw75
Ah. Well, the US is a carceral state that creates slaves & crushes marginalized peoples by enforcing "the law", so something isn't working out very well with "lawfulness".

2026-05-14 16:47:37 UTC

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@nprofile…hw75
Well, that's something they removed.
This article is more about the folks who quit including the senior folks carrying much of the institutional knowledge.

2026-05-14 16:08:44 UTC

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I don't think the FBI is a force for good. ACAB includes the FBI, but damn, it's kinda weird watching the fascists hollowing out structures they need to be able to carry out the increased oppression they want to enact.

2026-05-14 16:04:50 UTC

It's relatively easy to destroy institutions. It's not easy to build them or repair structural damage.
The Trump admin are acting like cartoon characters, busily sawing off the supports that are holding them up.
"Top FBI agents fled Trump’s chaos in droves — and it can't be fixed anytime soon"
https://www.alternet.org/trump-fbi-2676894809/

2026-05-12 18:37:28 UTC

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Socially, people get to place demands on you for no reason other than the fact that they want to.
Triple that if you're a woman.
And that's just how we go around interacting with each other for some goddamn reason.

2026-05-12 18:29:27 UTC

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A lot of social conventions really ignore consent.

2026-05-12 18:28:27 UTC

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Honestly it's fucking weird how—as long as it's not considered intimate/private—there seems to be a social expectation to be willing to talk about anything people ask about, & if you aren't willing, you're supposed to duck & dodge the questions rather than simply decline to indulge someone's curiosity.

2026-05-12 18:23:55 UTC

Ohhhh!
If someone asks you questions about something you don't want to talk about, you don't have to give deflections & partial explanations.
You can say "I don't want to talk about that."
It's possible they'll think you're rude. But you aren't obliged to explain yourself simply because someone asks.
My friend was asking me questions about something she didn't know was a sore subject, & I kept giving partial answers, & she kept asking. I could have just said I didn't want to answer. Huh.

2026-05-11 17:09:32 UTC

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I suppose it probably goes both ways.
I think perhaps we were both in search of mirrors, both trying to find ourselves revealed in the eyes of someone else.
I however developed the tendency to try to reflect others. At first I did so in hopes of feeling accepted at all even by losing myself, but later I developed the expectation & belief that the other person was supposed to see & respond to me, as happened in my best & happiest friendships.

2026-05-11 17:05:58 UTC

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No wonder I have been so stuck on her & unable to move on. I took parts of her—unhealthy, unhappy parts—into myself. I've never known how to untangle myself from her.
In my unconscious, unknowing imitation of her, I became so fearful, because SHE was afraid.
The anxiety to be loved & the desperate attempt to find love by offering myself up as a mirror were me. The fear of the judgment of others? The pathological fear of failing to conform? Not me. Not inherently.

2026-05-11 17:05:58 UTC

Another piece of this: I think perhaps I have been so hung up on my relationship to my sister BECAUSE I didn't understand that some things I thought were "me" were actually me reflecting *her*.
Some of the things I thought were "her" were actually things she imitated me on, but I didn't understand the bleed over. I was the driving force behind every one of our "shared interests", but she just sort of absorbed them into herself, into the her-me that was us as sisters.

2026-05-10 16:10:06 UTC

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Good bi representation ain't nearly as rare as good ace representation (sorry folks), but it can be pretty hard to find. It is certainly getting easier though!
There's no questioning of whether someone's "really" bi. There's no emphasis or significance being put on ending up with a person of a specific gender. It's just, "this person is bi, & here is their partner."
I'm a big fan of that.

2026-05-10 16:03:11 UTC

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One later-introduced character is shown to be bi, & another character discovers she's bi during a timeskip, & is dating her business partner when we jump a few months ahead.
Other than a few times where she is getting used to a queer relationship & a few people making "huh. She's dating a woman now" remarks, no one has much to say about it. She's had male partners & now she has a female partner, & it's just treated as so normal it doesn't even need to be explained.
LOVE it.

2026-05-10 16:03:10 UTC

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And let's talk bisexual representation:
One character early on has the realization he's bisexual, & there is a whole song & dance about him discovering he's bi (literally a song & dance, because this show has musical numbers).
BUT we also get 2 bi characters where it's not even treated as any kind of surprise or big deal.
I like both. There is too much bi erasure NOT to celebrate & talk about bisexuality, but also it's fucking normal, & I like to see it depicted that way.

2026-05-10 15:52:10 UTC

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Also it is so rare to see women's sexuality so openly & realistically depicted on TV. Rebecca is horny as fuck, & sex is a big part of her life, & I love that.
It's representation I didn't even know I needed.

2026-05-07 15:08:08 UTC

It's probably distasteful that on a recent walk with my husband I said we were playing "Marines & Viet Cong" (like "cops & robbers" or "cowboys & I'm-not-going-to-say-it"), & we were on the trail of the Marines because I kept seeing cigarette butts on the ground.
But we were watching the Ken Burns documentary at the time, & that is LITERALLY one of the ways the Viet Cong could track US Marines through the jungle.

2026-05-07 13:58:57 UTC

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I'd be quite interested to know the order in which some of these strikes occurred, given that they took place over a couple weeks.
Did they immediately target the important tactical equipment like radar & satellite installations & then hit barracks & other targets later?
They say that they reviewed satellite images from the war’s start through April 14, so you'd think they might be able to provide a timeline, but no.

2026-05-07 13:58:57 UTC

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One of the reasons the IR may not consider inflicting mass casualties on US Forces a good idea is that Americans tend to start to see red when they feel like "the troops" have been harmed en masse.
I don't believe "maximum lethality" is an advantage for them when their diplomatic situation in most of the world is so shaky, & I just don't see evidence that they were trying to do that.

2026-05-07 13:58:57 UTC

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An inconsistency in the narrative:
>“The Iranian attacks were precise. There are no random craters indicating misses,” said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a retired Marine Corps colonel
This does not align with the claim that the IR intended to inflict mass casualties. If they were hitting their targets with a high degree of accuracy AND they were selecting their targets for maximum lethality, you would expect more deaths.

2026-05-07 13:22:29 UTC

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I *almost* want to read the full Washington Post story, so I can look at what isn't said & what questionable things are implied, but I don't want it enough to create an account for the Bezos shit paper.
This shit is cover-up too. This is still minimizing the damage to US military capabilities. It's just doing so with a little lip-service to reality.

2026-05-07 13:18:50 UTC

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For Iran, destroying US military infrastructure has a lot more fucking value than taking lives, but they're still not talking about that, even when they are reporting on the damage done.
They aren't talking about what the damage means.

2026-05-07 13:18:49 UTC

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Here's the fucking deal: wars aren't won by killing the largest number of people. If the US military didn't fucking learn that in Vietnam, then I guess they are never going to learn it, but it seems to me that the IR—under an existential threat—is fighting strategically to win & that it's a fucking mistake to assume that their goal is to kill the most Americans they can.

2026-05-07 13:13:59 UTC

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Everything on a US military base is infrastructure, even the McDonald's. This is where they house, feed, & placate their personnel.
Spouse says stopping at the 5th Fleet HQ in Bahrain was such a relief because it was like stepping into a mini-America. It felt like home, & that was part of its purpose.
This quote makes it sound like the only thing on a military base an enemy could actually want to destroy is the stuff with the most direct "military" function. That's just fucking silly.

2026-05-07 13:13:58 UTC

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>“The Iranians have deliberately targeted accommodation buildings across multiple sites with the intent to inflict mass casualties,” image analyst William Goodhind told the Post. “It is not just equipment, fuel storage and air base infrastructure under fire, but also soft targets, such as gyms, food halls and accommodation.”
This is the part of the WaPo reporting I don't believe.
I don't buy that the main reason for targeting common areas as well as "infrastructure" was mass casualties.

2026-05-07 13:13:58 UTC

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One of the reasons I don't buy it is that there weren't mass casualties. Quite a few people were injured, but not many killed. I'm not buying that the IR was going for the greatest lethality. I still believe that they were trying to render these places non-functional.
I think that's what is STILL not being talked about, even when the media are literally reporting on the fact that the damage is much more extensive than initially acknowledged.

2026-05-07 13:13:58 UTC

The WaPo reported yesterday what we all already knew: the damage to US bases in the Gulf region is more extensive than the Trump admin admits to.
I didn't read the original article because Bezos's rag won't let me read for free without creating an account.
However, in reports on the WaPo report, I saw a quote from it by one of the image analysts.

2026-05-05 14:32:51 UTC

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What matters is what's happening & what these people are doing.
They fucking lie constantly. They say ridiculous things because they are a) out of touch, b) very ignorant, c) trying to distract & d) not actually good liars.
Dissecting their lies is a fucking distraction.
Again, I don't think it's something we shouldn't talk about—I just made a Lucille Bluth joke about Todd Blanche—but I'm sick of the pretense that laughing at their nonsense is journalism.

2026-05-05 14:28:28 UTC

So...I don't think there is any problem with you & I talking about the absurdities of the Trump admin & the ridiculous things they say & do.
However, it's starting to bother me more than ever watching all the supposed "journalists" focused on "debunking" obviously false claims or theorizing what Trump meant by some remark he made to project strength or manipulate the market or just because he had to say SOMETHING.

2026-05-05 14:18:55 UTC

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It really sucks how much AI has devalued the information you can find online, but it has made stuff that had become almost obsolete valuable again, so that's an interesting reversal.
I plan to create a library of reference books for my art from wherever I can pick up photograph books cheap. Maybe I'll hit some thrift store book sections this weekend.

2026-05-05 14:12:12 UTC

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Anyway, I'm going to hit up the clearance section at Half Price Books to see what I can find for books with pictures of birds, flowers, & other natural things. They often have those big books full of photographs for 2 or 3 bucks a piece.

2026-05-05 14:12:12 UTC

It really sucks that it's very hard to just find reference images online anymore.
I want to look at peacock feathers, & I just don't know if I can trust that any given image is real. Even if it seems to be from a legit site... how do I know they weren't duped?
It's so fucking shitty.
One can't help but think that making real information difficult to find is the purpose of generative AI.

2026-05-05 14:02:46 UTC

My brain doesn't really believe in "time". I think this is largely an ADHD thing, & it can be a real problem. If I could do something now, I could also do it a minute from now, or an hour from now, or tomorrow, so what difference does it make?
I say as I delay all productive work indefinitely.

2026-05-01 17:37:57 UTC

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The question is not really "how much will it cost?" but "is it even possible to rebuild & if so, what resources would be required to do that? How long would it take?"

2026-05-01 17:35:15 UTC

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They keep framing it in number of dollars to repair, but I actually think more important is how long it will take to repair & how much manpower would be required. Not to mention, how tf do they plan to keep safe from Iran while rebuilding & in the future?
I think we see a reduction in US military presence in the area whenever this bullshit all falls apart, simply because they have no options.

2026-05-01 17:29:39 UTC

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"Three officials told NBC News there was later extensive damage to the headquarters building for the U.S. Navy in Bahrain"
Uh-huh. The 5th Fleet is fucking *suffering* right now.

2026-05-01 17:27:48 UTC

This is what I have been saying!
And you may see "warehouses" listed & think "no biggie", but we are talking about the supply hubs for US Armed Forces in the Persian Gulf. This is where they go to stock up food. What if they aren't able to keep large stores of refrigerated food? That's a fucking problem.
But also runways, hangars, radar arrays, & satellite communications to name a few others.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/5849646-iran-damage-us-military-bases/

2026-05-01 17:27:48 UTC

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When the REAL extent of this is known... it's going to be wild.
Iran went aggressively after US military infrastructure in the Gulf, & it's a huuuge problem for the US, whether the Pentagon will admit to it or not.

2026-05-01 13:37:21 UTC

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@nprofile…rzr2
Not to mention, I know they are trying to do other things as well to push women into marriage, but if they throw out no-fault, then it's going to be harder to convince women to marry them in the first place.

2026-05-01 11:40:59 UTC

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But yeah, in my experience many douchey men actively work hard for years to give their wives reason to leave. They aren't just passively shitty. They are trying to use their shitty behavior to change what their wife does.
The thing is, it works so well that the change their wife makes is to stop being their wife.
These men are surprised that the women they tormented get up & leave once they realize the torment isn't going to stop. I don't know how that could be a surprise, but it is.

2026-05-01 11:35:50 UTC

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As someone who experienced much of the shitty behavior these women described with my first husband, yeah, it's kind of funny to me the way lazy, cruel husbands think their wives are going to stay & tolerate that shit.
Like... these guys think they have it MADE! They got married & now they think they get to do whatever they want.
Nah. Women want to be happy. She'll leave.

2026-05-01 11:33:08 UTC

I was watching a video compilation of women explaining how their marriages died through the "small" but continuous disrespect their husbands showed them, & a couple of them described behaviors that are exactly the kind of advice I've seen men give other men for maintaining power over their wife.
The ones that stuck out to me are ways of deflecting & ignoring & turning things back around on someone when they try to talk to you about something as well as ways of showing deliberate disrespect.

2026-05-01 11:33:08 UTC

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The horrifying thing about all of it is that all this shit probably did "work" to get your wife to just shut up, leave you alone, & do all the housework & childcare by herself back when marriage was a permanent life sentence for a woman.
It is still kind of amusing to see men teaching each other how to make their wives leave, because in a world where women have OPTIONS, that's exactly what they are doing.

2026-04-30 15:43:45 UTC

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I saw someone did a video of what it's like being at a store for most people & what it's like for ADHD people, & if true I'm mad about that shit.
Because the "what it's like for ADHD people" was just the din of all of the noises you hear in the store: register beeps, shopping carts rattling, people talking,, the lights buzzing, & you know...ALL OF THE SOUNDS that you hear constantly the *entire time* you're in a store.

2026-04-30 15:40:27 UTC

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I'm told that when some people go out to eat they are not bombarded all at once with every conversation in the room all at once.
Meanwhile I am like "sorry, I couldn't hear what you're saying, but I did catch fragments of 4 entirely separate conversations from around the room while you were speaking."

2026-04-30 15:36:33 UTC

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Last time I saw his dad it was "it's been a really long time since I've seen you!" and I feel bad but in general I just don't want to go out.
When I was younger I'd just go do things & suffer, but I just don't have as much patience for silently suffering these days.

2026-04-30 15:36:33 UTC

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I'm actually hoping to improve my relationship with my in-laws.
Spouse & his dad & sister like to go out & do things together, & I just don't want to, but in theory if I could reduce sensory overload, maybe going out among people would be less of a punishment for me.

2026-04-30 15:27:26 UTC

Welp. I'm going to try Loop earplugs.
And if they greatly improve my sensory experience in public, I am going to be so mad.
I'm always mad when it turns out there are solutions.

2026-04-30 13:56:46 UTC

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@nprofile…4n05
We do seem to be at a point when the movies made more "cheaply" frequently are of a significantly higher quality than films that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. It's embarrassing sometimes what these expensive films look like.
But I guess that's generally how it turns out with corporate products: no one who is making them has any part of themself invested in them.

2026-04-30 12:37:30 UTC

WHY are the costumes in the live action Disney Princess movies so shitty?
These movies cost an enormous amount to make, but Snow White is wearing a dress that child-me would have rejected at a costume store for seeming too tacky & cheap. I almost expected to see a little plastic thing on it with a picture of animated Snow White like they do on kid's costumes.

2026-04-29 15:29:25 UTC

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It's hard to believe that I was excited for that, knowing now what that show was, but...
I do resent Fey for that.
There is PLENTY of fucking humor to find in the subject of that show, but it would take empathy & making the effort to listen to other people to find that humor.
Pointing & laughing at people you think are freaks is a lot fucking easier, isn't it?

2026-04-29 15:26:09 UTC

Before Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt came out, I was actually excited for it. At the time, I liked Tina Fey. It's hard to remember now, but I did.
I thought, oh cool! A comedy about survivors of a religious cult trying to adjust to living in the world! It may be a sensitive topic, but it's filled with opportunity for dark comedy.
Turned out the show was about pointing & laughing at the experience of religious abuse.

2026-04-29 12:40:15 UTC

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I want to try to talk more about liberalism as political philosophy, but it can be tricky because that's not the only thing "liberal" means.
It actually has so many fucking meanings, many of them very contradictory.
But we do need to look very critically at the legacy of "liberal government". It is still colonialism, & it explains a lot about why we are where we are now.

2026-04-29 12:36:21 UTC

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Genocide & eugenics are essential parts of the political project of "liberalism", which was born out of the Enlightenment.
That's right: liberalism is a political philosophy invented by colonizers as they enjoyed the benefits of imperialism. It emphasizes a greater degree of equality...for the people who count as people. And the unsavory shit happens quietly out of sight.

2026-04-29 12:36:21 UTC

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This "polite murder through bureaucracy" IS what political liberalism IS, fyi.
This is NOT what I assume when a person says they are "liberal".
I usually assume it means that they would like tax dollars used to improve people's lives, which is a sign of having empathy for others. In general I find that admirable, even though sometimes it can be more well-intentioned than actually good.
That's the general, popular use of the term, but I'm talking about liberalism as political philosophy.

2026-04-29 12:36:20 UTC

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Any time you see a "merciful" "liberal" policy, look around to see how they mean to use it to harm some group of "undesirable" people. They are quite clever with it, & it's frequently built into how they structure their "mercy" project.
This is the twisted fucking bind we are in.

2026-04-29 12:18:32 UTC

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The choice is not the result of some inherent moral problem, some "slippery slope."
Sure, you do have to define in which cases MAiD is appropriate & when it should be refused, but in a world not founded on eugenics & hatred of the poor, there's no reason for this to result in MAiD being pushed on disabled people instead of offering support & accommodations.
The only way the ruling class will give us "nice things" is if they can find an opportunity to harm targeted people.

2026-04-29 12:13:17 UTC

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We're forced to choose between those horrible options.
The State asserts control over every aspect of our lives & says that they can forbid people receiving merciful end-of-life care unless we also tolerate their efforts at eugenics.
They use their ownership & control to force these choices on people.
Frequently the "sides" for the politicians are "conservatives, who say "make everyone suffer", & "liberals" who say "we'll offer relief if we can also use it to 'mercy kill' disabled people."

2026-04-29 12:13:17 UTC

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This is what the ruling elite do to us with everything. Options in this case are:
- ban medical professionals from providing assistance to dying people who would like to reduce their suffering & have some agency over the how & when of their death. This means that a lot of people unnecessarily suffer slowly & painfully towards the end of their lives
or
- allow dying people to receive assistance in their painful last days, but also pressuring disabled people to kill themselves.

2026-04-28 22:04:19 UTC

You gotta love how quickly Medical Assistance in Dying goes from merciful relief for people who are dying painfully to "are you disabled? We'd like to rid society of the burden of having you in it. Instead of offering you support or care, we're generously offering to kill you."
It's almost like some people really do want to exterminate disabled folks.

2026-04-28 19:20:58 UTC

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It sucks to feel so unwell that you want to hold your head & howl from the absolutely unbearable overstimulation while trying to behave as though everything is perfectly fine because otherwise you'll be "ruining" everyone's fun.
Yeah...this definitely started in childhood. It is unacceptable, I seem to feel, to have mental, emotional, & sensory needs that might limit or cut short another person's enjoyment of something.

2026-04-28 19:14:58 UTC

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We were there with his dad, & we had to leave early because I couldn't take it anymore, & it sucked. I felt like garbage for having sensory needs.
It's not that anyone *told* me to feel horrible about myself. They didn't have to. I sometimes can't do things that other people can, specifically things that it is generally believed *everyone* can do. Even when people are kind & accommodating, it still feels like shame & failure to end the outing early "just" because I'm suffering.

2026-04-28 19:10:26 UTC

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Me trying to explain this to my spouse at the State Fair last year after I got overheated & overstimulated: "no, I know it's much quieter & cooler in this building, but I'm still listening to a whole lot of people constantly talking. It doesn't matter that the volume is lower: the voices are never going to stop. I cannot recover in this environment."

2026-04-28 19:06:12 UTC

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Does anyone else just sometimes want to scream when spoken at?
Sometimes I cannot find a sense of well-being until I can be in a quiet place where no one is talking.

2026-04-28 19:02:52 UTC

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We're at the "end chatter" portion of the meeting. I can't get out without being rude, but trying to process people's verbal output is really, extremely tiring today.
I could hardly bear to make conversation with my lovely spouse this morning, that's how much I don't want to have auditory conversations, but here I am trapped listening. This sucks.

2026-04-28 18:55:08 UTC

Please just let this meeting end. I'm tired of human voices.

2026-04-28 15:52:02 UTC

This is one of the privileges that wealthy white women get: as appalling as it is that they are not always allowed to exercise their own agency, they can claim this is a reason not to worry their pretty little heads about where the money comes from & who suffered for it.
They leave the ugliness to the men & only express their own attitudes towards exploitation in situations where they have all the power (at which point, you WILL know where they stand no matter how much they pretend otherwise).

2026-04-28 13:30:29 UTC

I just rewatched the Pride & Prejudice miniseries with Colin Firth & Jennifer Ehle, & I still love it (really, the psycho-sexual politics of the whole thing are just crazy) BUT it does hit different when I think about the fact that all the wealth comes from the British Empire plundering the wealth of other nations & enslaving people.
All that wealth was not generated in England.

2026-04-27 14:21:18 UTC

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I already knew this form of "AI" is bullshit & not intelligent in the least, but now I fear it less than I used to.
The AI companies want you to believe breakthrough after breakthrough is coming, that they will continually innovate but...
...that's actually pretty unlikely. That's not really how shit works. Throwing money at a project doesn't make it possible for that project to perpetually improve. There may be a limit.

2026-04-27 14:18:50 UTC

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This happens with lots of new technologies. Eventually, you will have gotten just about as far as you can with a particular one.
Without something else new (which does sometimes happen, but sometimes not), the thing simply is what it is & is only capable of whatever tasks its design allows for.
You can't extrapolate infinite progress from past progress, *especially* not expecting the same rate of growth as when the technology was first being created.

2026-04-27 14:15:26 UTC

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That is my layperson's understanding of the current chatbot AI situation anyway.
The outputs seem surprisingly plausible in most instances, but the makers of these things have just about hit the limits of what this technology can do (at least without someone coming up with a genuinely new breakthrough).
It seems that these companies are now just fiddling with prompts (or having the bots do it themselves) & calling it "development".

2026-04-27 14:11:13 UTC

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This is barely a simulacrum of "intelligence". And most importantly, it doesn't seem like there is a lot of obvious possibility for genuine progress on these things, as it is no longer a matter of innovation but of adding prompts inside prompts inside prompts.
Performance in specific circumstances can be "improved" for the user experience, but it's not actually that the thing is "smarter" but that the flowchart of steps before the output is given to the user has been made more complex.

2026-04-27 14:11:13 UTC

Something has changed in the way I view AI since Claude code leaked.
I should not I am depending on some other people's analysis, because a) I haven't looked in depth myself and b) even if I did I wouldn't know what I was talking about.
But my understanding is that Claude & the like are filled with all these recursive loops of checking, "creating" an AI agent for a specific tasks, like reviewing the output before it's given to the user to "check" for things.

2026-04-23 19:44:11 UTC

It's amazing that we keep getting "TACO Tuesdays" because Trump always gives 2 weeks. If he'd make it 10 days just ONCE, it wouldn't be TACO Tuesday anymore. Yet he persists.

2026-04-23 16:25:49 UTC

High quality Iranian propaganda will contain at minimum 1 diss directed at Israel & usually more. If you're watching a video that is like "hello, fellow kids. Look at bad Republicans. America is a once proud nation" & doesn't ONCE reference Israel, Mossad, or Netanyahu, you know you're not watching the real thing.
Stay sharp out there. 🫡

2026-04-22 20:59:30 UTC

I just looooove it when people caption a video "Trump DEFEATED by Iran!!!" & it turns out they mean that someone with an Iranian flag emoji in their username wrote a mean tweet about him. /s
Huffington Post-style clickbait.

2026-04-22 19:00:19 UTC

Me this coming autumn: "Vote blue no matter who!"
My followers: *staring at me* "Are you sure you're ok?"
Me: yeah, I'm an accelerationist now. Vote for Democrats & watch this whole thing fall apart. 😂

2026-04-22 18:48:22 UTC

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If Dems claim both houses of Congress this fall, I think their failure to do anything good or helpful or restorative is going to be more glaringly fucking obvious than ever.
Or I dunno. Maybe they'll put on a good show, but I fucking doubt it. I don't think the oligarchs are willing to allow that anymore.

2026-04-22 18:36:13 UTC

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Personally I think the real challenge for politicians in 2028 is to convince anyone to imagine that the government serves anyone but the uber wealthy.
Nothing would be worse news for the Democratic Party than if they sweep the midterms. If they sweep the midterms & then continue to enrich the wealthy at the cost of the rest of us while doing nothing about corruption & rich people crimes, I think that's what destroys the last semblance of legitimacy for the whole thing.