You can make it better. Better is always worth fighting for.
Barack Obama, 7 September 2018
Better is good. I used to have to tell my young staff this all the time in the white house. Better is good. That’s the history of progress in this country. Not perfect, better. The civil rights act didn’t end racism, but it made things better. Social security didn’t eliminate all poverty for seniors, but it made things better for millions of people. Do not let people tell you the fight’s not worth it because you won’t get everything that you want. The idea that, well, you know, there’s racism in America, so I’m not going to bother voting, no point, that makes no sense. You can make it better. Better is always worth fighting for. That’s how our founders expected this system of self-government to work. Through the testing of ideas and the application of reason and evidence and proof, we could sort through our differences, and nobody would get exactly what they wanted, but it would be possible to find a basis for common ground. And that common ground exists.
hot take: ‘chivalry’ is fine as long as it’s adapted to 21st century values. if you are a male, you SHOULD be aware that your female friends face certain issues that you as a male dont. acting on that awareness in a way that keeps your female friends safe, isn’t a bad thing.
like… opening doors isn’t rly chivalrous when it’s just a thing you ought to do for everyone. but real 21st century chivalry might be, like, standing between your female friend and the guy that’s trying to get her drunk, or offering to walk her home when it’s late.
if the ‘chivalry’ inconveniences everyone involved and you’re just doing it for your over-inflated male ego — ie, “no you’re the girl here, you HAVE to let me hold this door for you and do all these things for you even when you can do it yourself and im just slowing you down” — then it’s just outdated misogyny.
If you’re an American and you’re registered to vote: please vote on Tuesday. If you’re not registered yet, check to see if your state does same-day registration. If you don’t have a ride, check Uber and Lyft because they are doing free/discounted rides in many areas; if you’re worried about voter intimidation find a voting buddy. The ACLU has a lot of information on knowing your rights, so check their website if it’s a concern where you are. Find out the rules on provisional ballots and waiting in line (usually you’re allowed to vote so long as you got in line before the polls close, but double-check for your own area).
Vote the entire ballot! Check both sides (if it’s paper). If it’s electronic, double-check that you hit the buttons you intended.
If you’re not American but living in some sort of representative government, then you should vote on whatever your voting day is too!
The experiences of conventionally attractive people and conventionally unattractive people can be so jarringly different and it really deserves some conversation. But I hate how the only mention of this comes from incels or anti-feminists or other right aligned losers with not an ounce of nuance in their bones lmaooo
Like, your physical attractiveness can shape not just your interpersonal experiences but also real tangible things such as but no limited to whether or not you get a job or being believed as a victim or what kind of roles you can get as an actor or perhaps the length of a sentence or how much help is offered to you in a time of need etc. etc.
i think part of the reason this doesnt get talked about is that people are often more concerned with telling people “oh youre not ugly! everyone is beautiful!” instead of “your worth shouldnt be determined by how conventionally attractive you are” which like. is well intentioned but misses the point entirely. obviously not everyone is conventionally attractive–thats as obvious as the fact that some people look different from other people. the issue is that when someone isnt conventionally attractive, theyre considered lesser for it, which shouldnt be the case!
It’s sad that toxic game culture is so prevalent cuz like. As someone who has ended up in random matches with kids before, I can attest to how fucking easy it is to reverse and un-teach shitty attitudes in kids.
Example: I downloaded Friday the 13th because it’s free on psn. I dunno how to play, so I just enter quick play and I’m matched with 3-4 kids on mic. Immediately on mic they’re shitty and disparaging to each other. They laugh at each others deaths, they actively work against team mates and self sabotage, they call each other “fags”, etc. From the sounds of the voices they cannot be older than 13-14.
I put on my mic and just decide I ain’t havin it. I am nice. I thank them for barricading doors or leaving me items. When they break free from Jason’s grasp I say “good job!” or I try to help them. One kid survived for most of the match by himself. When he dies, I tell him he did a fantastic job.
The mood shift is practically INSTANT. These kids almost immediately stop being dick heads. They start encouraging each other and being kind. After the match all of them try to friend request me. Which should tell you a couple of things:
A) kids want to be kind, and they want to have a nice time playing games. But encounters with adults like me or so rare that they’ve trained themselves to instantly put on a toxic, shitty, defensive veneer when encountering any new person online. It’s literally just THAT EASY to not groom a horrible gaming community, it’s just that NO ONE does it.
B) the speed of which they all tried to friend me was cute, but paints for me such a sad picture? Like these kids are SO desperate to find people to play with who aren’t crappy jerks. They played with me for 10 minutes TOPS and all instantly tried to reach out to me.
tl;dr: The kids are alright. Adults are shit heads.
I cant agree with this post more
I witnessed something similar with my younger brother (this was when he was In fifth grade so bear with me here) and his friends. The teacher assigned for them to build a somewhat accurate spanish mission in Minecraft because their school had gotten some iPads and she needed to assign them something other than a PowerPoint.
Now here’s the thing. Most of these boys, my brother included, have ADD/ADHD. About a week into the project all they had in their shared world was chaos. Somebody filled the place with tnt and lit it up. Holes everywhere. Whenever one would attempt to try and build something (mostly wood huts and not the actual project) it would be destroyed within minutes as the boys began to insult each other heavily and complain that the design was ugly.
I brought my own ipad with me and decided to sit with the boys while they continued their reign of terror. I joined the world and built a hallway out of brick at the very center of this war zone. Immediately one of them tried to destroy it under the impression that “it looks bad”.
“Well, what should I make it out of?”
“Diamond.”
The ten year old mind is a mystery to me…
Anyway, then I showed him some pictures similar to these:
I reasoned that it would be easier to sway this kid toward another pretty block than trying to get him to stick to the materials of the time, so I asked him if he would like to help me replace my brick design with quartz (eh, it’s white).
Bam! One of the ten year old anarchists is dutifully building me a glittering gem hallway for our insanely rich monks.
The other three are off somewhere still yelling at each other and setting off explosives, but we have something built. Much to my surprise the kid asked if he could build the church next because he “wanted to build the most important part”.
Here’s where I learned something important. I don’t have ADD or ADHD but as I said before my brother does. When he gets fixated on something, he’s really gets into it. Once a few minutes had passed and this kid already had four walls up I decided to grid up the entire mission. One gets the church, one gets the farm, etc.
After playing the game with them for an hour, I had a pretty good idea of where each kid should go.
Church kid, I found, was very particular about materials and shape(hence his hangup over the brick). I gave him free reign over the outer walls of the mission and showed him the reference pictures to get him started.
My brother liked the farms most (he was building dirt domes over the cows don’t ask me how I made this connection it just worked, okay), so he was in charge of building pens for the animals.
Another kid was, at first glance, very loud and bossy when it came to decorating (constantly said we were making chairs wrong). Turns out he likes interior design, like putting benches and beds in the little rooms, so his bossiness was just frustration with my brother’s artistic sense I guess.
Another was very good with placing trees and plants around the exterior (I guessed this because he covered the place in a ridiculous amount of trees and I asked him if he would like to know where they are supposed to go). He got to make a vineyard for us and organized how the crops should go.
So how did it turn out?
Actually very nice!!
So what did we learn? Kids actually like to play games and be praised for their creativity and intuition. If I had just told them to stop messing around rather than direct their attention to areas within their interests, they never would have gotten anything done.
After an hour of gaming they:
Mirrored my language; “thank you!”, “which part are you working on?”, “I like this block.”
Realized each other’s strengths; “hey [kid name] can you help me with the roof?” “How do you make the big trees [kid name]?”
Were able to articulate exactly what they did or didn’t like without using force; “that looks good!”, “how about we put it there?”, “I don’t like that block, how about this one?”
On the plus side, since we moved the game file to my device for safekeeping, I now have a cute little souvenir of the time I played Minecraft with four ten year olds.
Her name is Jane Elliott. She was a former schoolteacher, now she’s anti-racism activist, feminist and LGBT activist. She’s tiny, mean, and boss as fuck.
She’s known for her “blue eyes-brown eyes experiment” where she divides a group of volunteers from the blues and the browns. The minute the people walk in, the blue-eyes know they’re not welcomed. She makes them wait in a separate room, gives them shitty chairs, bad food, and shows them less respect. And (obviously) it causes all sorts of discomfort and rage, but that’s precisely her point. It doesn’t help that most blue-eyed volunteers happen to be white as well. Sometimes they get the message, sometimes they don’t and leave, sometimes crying or screaming. And Jane Elliott says that’s exactly what minorities want to do everyday of their lives, but they simply cannot do.
In a big victory for hackers, tinkerers, and the right to repair movement, the US Copyright Office
has ruled some major changes to the legal exemption to the DMCA, making
it far easier for owners to build software tools to hack, modify, and
repair their own devices, as explained by iFixit founder Kyle Wiens.
Under section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act (DMCA), it is “unlawful to circumvent technological measures used to
prevent unauthorized access to copyrighted works.” Because software has
become so integral to all the devices we use — everything from phones
to speakers to even trackers — device manufacturers have long used
section 1201 to prevent owners from taking apart or repairing their own
devices, arguing that breaking the software locks as part of replacing
parts or modifying your gadgets is a violation of that statute.
But as part of that law, citizens are allowed to petition
for exemptions to section 1201 every three years, when the Copyright
Office rules what kind of repairs and software tools are and aren’t
allowed by the law. The final ruling for this cycle was just released
(it goes into effect as law on October 28th), and it enacts broad new
protections for repairing devices.
The right to jailbreak and modify voice-assistant devices, like those powered by Amazon’s Alexa or Google Assistant
It’s now legal to unlock new phones, and not just used ones
There’s a general exemption for repairing “smartphones,”
“home appliances,” and “home systems.” Wiens points out that this could
help users legally fix devices like the permanently bricked Revolv home hub by installing new firmware or software.
It’s legal to repair cars, tractors, and other motorized
land vehicles by modifying the software on your own. (This has been an
issue for some time, with tractor company John Deere in particular
making the fairly ludicrous argument that letting users modify software
on the tractors that they own — even in the name of doing legitimate
repair work — could lead to owners hacking the tractors and using them
to pirate music. Yes, really.)
Lastly, it’s legal for other third parties to do these
kinds of repairs on your behalf — so even if you can’t code your way
into fixing a bricked smart home, it’s not illegal to pay someone who
can to do it for you.
There are still some major aspects of 1201 that remain in
place. The Copyright Office didn’t grant exemptions to section 1201 for
game console repairs — meaning you still can’t replace a busted CD
drive on your Xbox or PS4 on your own, since those parts are locked via
software to the specific console for security reasons.
The ruling is also specific for those specific categories
of smartphones, home appliances, home systems, and motorized land
vehicles — so things that don’t fit in those buckets (like planes or
boats) are still protected by the law and can’t be hacked.
Lastly, and most crucially, the Copyright Office’s ruling
still doesn’t allow trafficking in the software tools to circumvent
these kinds of software locks, even in the name of repair. So you can
develop the tools to repair things yourself, and folks can pay you to do
those repairs for them, but you can’t distribute or sell those tools to
others.
Still, it’s a big win for the gadget repair community,
and one that codifies into law the right for you to fix or hack or
repair the things you bought any way you want, regardless of what the
manufacturer says. And as our devices become ever more reliant on
software, that’s a very good thing.
Can I watch a great film knowing the actresses in it were terrorized and mistreated the entire time? Can I watch a football game knowing that the players are getting brain injuries right before my eyes? Can I listen to my favorite albums anymore knowing that the singers were all beating their wives in between studio sessions? Can I eat at the new fancy taco place knowing when the building that used to be there got bulldozed eight families got kicked out of their homes so they could be replaced with condos and a chain restaurant? Can I wear the affordable clothes I bought downtown that were probably assembled in a sweatshop with child labor? Can I eat quinoa?
Can I eat this burger? Can I drink this bottled water? Can I buy a car and drive to work because I’m sick of taking an hour each way on the subway? Whose bones do I stand on? Whose bones am I standing on right now?
On one hand, it’s a privilege to be able to choose to acknowledge these horrors or not–we’re going to acknowledge that privilege. On the other hand, I once attended a lecture by the explorerer-conservationist Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s daughter and son and they had a lot of opinions about what we could do to help the environment and the ocean and I talked about how in my country, we have to drink bottled water, because it’s a desert and there’s only salt water all around, but we’re contributing to pollution and all of these things…
And she looked at me and told me not to fall into the trap of “activist guilt.” I couldn’t remember the exact words, but, it was the first time I’d heard the term and it took a weight off my shoulders.
We do what we can. It’s so much better than giving up entirely or not doing anything at all because we can’t do it perfectly. It doesn’t benefit anyone in the end if we just sit around feeling guilty about every little thing in life. I’d just joined tumblr back then (haha, so like, eight or nine years ago at this point?), I was being exposed to way more than I’d ever been before (I was previously just into feminism and animal rights/wildlife conservation/environmentalism since I was a kid), and it was weighing on me.
As long as humans are humans and living flawed lives, many consumed by greed, there will not be anything in this world untouched by evil.
I usually avoid stuff that says it was made in China or other cheap looking knockoffs, out of fear of them being made in sweatshops (now, I know even a lot of big brands use those…), it’s exhausting. Then, I read something about how people who actually lived and worked in those would still buy this cheap stuff and how this shocked the foreigner reporting on it, but they just looked confused like, it’s what they can afford and them avoiding consuming it isn’t going to change the whole system from the ground-up.
… it went on about how “money talks” and choosing where to put your money still feeds the whole capitalist system and is nearly a way of comforting yourself, but you not buying doesn’t mean everyone else isn’t. What needs to be tackled is at a much higher level than any of us can reach.
Of course, I’d still, given the choice, give my money to companies I agree with and I’ll boycott what I know to support awful stuff, but I also feel no superiority over this and know now it’s not as black and white or easy as I thought it was.
This is the same reason that moral purity “you can’t enjoy [x] because it’s Problematic ™” is such nonsense, because nothing is pure. There’s something bad about everything if you dig deep enough. As long as we lived in flawed human societies we’ve got to make the best of what they offer us. If you have the choice and means, please, do support those who do good, but also, don’t beat yourself up over not living up to an unattainable ideal.
No one can. You’ll just make yourself so miserable, you either burn up and stop fighting entirely or you’ll make yourself a non-productive, depressed heap just out of a bleeding heart left unchecked. You can’t make a change to this world if you refuse to engage in it.
reblogging this, because sometimes the guilt of it eats away at my insides, leaving me disgusted with not only myself, but life in general. Which is very much not good for my depression and thoughts of self-harm.
thing that I have seen repeatedly just now: people who are like “well, there’s no point in voting because Trump didn’t get the most votes and he still won and that shows the system is rigged” – the slightly more aware posters will also invoke the 2000 election – and while it’s a legitimateproblem that the Electoral College works in a way that increasingly gives Republicans an unfair advantage, it’s also really dumb to invoke that DURING THE MIDTERMS. Because THERE ISN’T AN ELECTORAL COLLEGE FOR ANY OTHER OFFICE. The person with the most votes WINS. GET OFF YOUR DIDN’T-PAY-ATTENTION-IN-CIVICS-CLASS ASS AND VOTE.
Site Title 