Being opposed to misogyny (even when it’s directed at awful people) does not make me a compatriot of theirs. The problem with the system is the oppression, not that the wrong people are being oppressed.

I don’t know what justice would be appropriate for all the harm these women have done, but I know that bigotry such as gendered oppression is antithetical to justice (even when it’s directed at people who have used their privilege on other axes to oppress others).

What an absurd statement. In no world am I standing by Trump. I’m a queer cripple who literally only has a place to live right now due to the solidarity and support of other oppressed people.

I don’t want to be the boot because the people I love and I have already been bled so much by the ruling class and no amount of revenge will be able to give me the life I could’ve led if not for the oppression I have faced.

The problem with the system is the systematic oppression, not that the wrong people are being oppressed.

https://youtu.be/qwAg4IMIb6w

🎶 My ass is a dump truck! My thighs are also dumbtrucks 🎶

We are justifiably angry at Republicans like this because they are enthusiastically a part of the boot that we are being crushed beneath. However, there is a distinction between wanting to be free of the boot, and wanting to be the boot.

It feels cathartic to be mean to people like this, and let’s be real, this level of unkindness is but a fraction of the cruelty they inflict upon us. However, this path does not lead to justice. I don’t want to be like them — not even a little bit.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iukUMRlaBBE

I went to one of the very posh UK universities where they’re split into smaller colleges, and my friend’s college would play the Soviet National anthem at the end of every big party that was hosted in the college bar. The college student union had even passed a motion mandating that.

It was a surreal experience to see. A large chunk of people loved this tradition, but for very different reasons. There were a decent number who were straight up communists (or at least sufficiently left wing that they loved the political subversiveness of celebrating this song at such a posh university); Some people liked it ironically, for the meme (of the anthem-enjoyers, this faction were typically the poshest of the bunch); meanwhile, some people just thought the song was a banger — in my view, on this matter, these were the most based of them

The meme doesn’t say anything about attractiveness though. As a not very attractive goth girl, I like goth style because it makes me feel less self conscious and more powerful in myself. The silly stompy boots help a lot with that

I really like how you’ve phrased this here — I think I’m going to end up borrowing aspects of your explanation to use myself. The person you’re replying to in this thread seems too entrenched in their opinion to hear the point you’re making here, but I not too infrequently find myself trying to explain the nuance of this phrase to people who are pro-palestinian liberation, but unsure about this particular slogan because they (quite reasonably) don’t want to inadvertently respond to a genocide with pro-genocide.

I’ve usually had good success in explaining why “from the river to the sea” isn’t inherently a pro-genocide slogan, but I feel like your explanation will help me to do this more effectively in future.

People like you help to make the internet a better place — which matters a lot to me, because one of my most desperately held beliefs is that it is possible to take the hopefulness of the early internet and combine it with the wisdom of the last few decades to produce a more robust kind of hope

And Steve probably wouldn’t blame you for that either. He’d just try to soften your heart by being his usual, earnestly enthusiastic self.

Damn, this thread (and replying to your comment in particular) just hit me with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. I’m so glad that I got to grow up at the time when I did, because now I have the privilege of grieving for Steve Irwin. Steve will always be a part of my fond childhood memories.

Most of my understanding of the horrors of white phosphorus comes from the game Spec Ops: The Line, a game that initially presents itself as a generic FPS in which you’re a valiant hero, but later forces you to confront the effects of the war crimes you commit in the game.

That’s what’s going through my head right now when reading this. White phosphorus is an abhorrent munition to use, even if there were no civilians in the blast area.

I’ve never been in that particular pit, as I don’t experience gender dysphoria in my assigned gender, but I recognise the shape of the pit based on other experiences being hopeless. Giving into one’s hopelessness can be an odd comfort sometimes. If you believe that this is it for you and it can’t ever get better, then you’re protected from the pain of hoping for more. Sometimes you hope for more and you work ridiculously hard to make it happen, but it still doesn’t feel enough to make you want to live. The prospect of that is so scary that resigning oneself to misery feels safer.

When I was very low, I resented people who were happier than me (which was most people) because they disrupted the worldview I’d built where there was no point in trying. Or alternatively, I resented them because I viewed them as being ontologically different to me — people who were born with the capacity to be happy, whereas people like me had no choice to stew in misery.

What sucks is that I did have a choice about a lot of things, but I didn’t have a choice about the systemic oppression that pushed me down that pit in the first place. I’m doing a lot better now, and I don’t feel like I’m in a pit anymore (besides the ultra wide pit of “suffering under late stage capitalism”, but at least I’m in good company). To get to this point, I need to be able to acknowledge that I was both powerless and powerful in my own life. I feel sad whenever I see /tttt/ and other cult-like doomer cultures because I really sympathise.

The optimisation objective is to fit n smaller squares (in this case, n=17) into the larger square, whilst minimising the size of the outer square. So that means that in this problem, the dimensions of the outer square isn’t a thing that we’re choosing the dimensions of, but rather discovering its dimensions (given the objective of "minimise the dimensions of the outer square whilst fitting 17 smaller squares inside it)

Oh my God, I fucking love this. I mean, I absolutely hate that this is the optimal way to pack 17 squares into a larger square such that the size of the larger square is minimised. However, I love that someone went to the effort of making a waffle iron plate for this. High effort shitposts like this give me life

Oh man, you weren’t kidding. This is so cringe:

[Not Epstein]:

Energy is a concept like matter is

It’s first an experience then a human interpretation of hat experience

By reifying flashes of evanescent perceptual snap shots the notion of objective reality is created and gives us the capacity to quantify and measure - so matter / energy are useful

constructs but constructs nevertheless

[…]

Epstein’s reply:

“Invisible… only means you cant see it. . a chair in a blackened room. It is the unknowable that is real.”

That’s so painful to read. It’s not the fact that they’re crudely waxing philosophical about fairly basic metaphysics — I’ve done plenty enough of that myself to be familiar with having thoughts that feel deeply profound and original, but are like metaphysics 101.

However, I had the curiosity to actually go and try to actively learn more about philosophy, which led me to be thoroughly humbled by realising how basic my ideas had been (and how out of my depth I was when trying to understand actually profound ideas). I stuck it out, and now I’m slightly less of a fool than I was then, and significantly more aware of my foolishness. Whereas Epstein and co. don’t have the self awareness to take their philosophising beyond this absurdly arrogant intellectual circle jerk.

These are the rich and powerful who are running the world, folks. Epstein’s mate even said “Dinner with minister for economy tonight.”. Ouch.

Maybe they were working from a reference photo that had the balls be visible, and they felt it’d be weirder to not include them

That problem is very much one that’s beyond the domain of scientists. That’s like saying “All I want literature to do is decipher the genetic basis of cancer”. Trust me, if science were able to cure billionaires, it would.

I don’t think it’s necessarily the goal — Discord is just a helpful yardstick to compare things to as a baseline (and some people are looking for something that replaces Discord as closely as possible). Having to switch services is a pain, and whilst it’s not optimal in the long term to just try to replace a thing with a clone, I can see why people don’t have the executive function energy to think too hard about this.

“preantepenultimate […], and I’m not just saying that to use the word.”

Whatever your reasons, I’m glad you used that word, because it’s a damn good word and I’m putting it on my list of good words (a silly project that I’ve had for a few years now)

I’m really glad you made this comment, because otherwise I was going to have to be the one to make this comment, and I wouldn’t have explained things nearly as well as you did.