I think a big reason why “children are an oppressed group” gets (wrongly!) read as a “pedophile talking point” is that everyone treats children so terribly that actual child molesters can speedrun winning a kid’s trust by like, actually respecting their needs and perspective, at least at first. Which means that the only way out of this mess is for all of us adults to treat children with respect, so that abusers can’t use the rareness of that respect as a weapon.
ALT
Yeah I’ve been thinking a lot about how cults will prey on marginalized people and how it’s so much easier to push an “us versus them” mentality on a person who already (legitimately, accurately) perceives the world as hostile to them
internet politics and real-world politics have gotten so separated, and pretty soon all this internet weirdness is gonna come crashing into real life and politicians are gonna start throwing around words like “SJW” and “anime communist” and “dark enlightenment” and it’s just gonna be the most ridiculous fucking thing
date of origin: 13th of april, 2015.
happy 10 year anniversary!
This post.
This fucking post.
It is in some ways, the only piece of evidence I have that there was a time Before.
of all the phrases we used to say in the 2010s era we need to bring back ‘what the hap is fuckening’ because honestly… what the hap is fuckening lately brother
I submit to you that the most iconic feature of any animal is either unlikely or impossible to fossilize.
If all we had of wolves were their bones we would never guess that they howl.
If all we had of elephants were fossils with no living related species, we might infer some kind of proboscis but we’d never come up with those ears.
If all we had of chickens were bones, we wouldn’t know about their combs and wattles, or that roosters crow.
We wouldn’t know that lions have manes, or that zebras have stripes, or that peacocks have trains, that howler monkeys yell, that cats purr, that deer shed the velvet from their antlers, that caterpillars become butterflies, that spiders make webs, that chickadees say their name, that Canada geese are assholes, that orangutans are ginger, that dolphins echolocate, or that squid even existed.
My point here is that we don’t know anything about dinosaurs. If we saw one we would not recognize it. As my evidence I submit the above, along with the fact that it took us two centuries to realize they’d been all around us the whole time.
XKCD
So that people don’t need to go through the notes:
- We have fossils of spider webs
- Paleontologists have reconstructed the larynx (voice box) of extinct animals and we have a pretty good idea what vocalizations they were capable of
- Fossilized pigments have been found in a variety of taxa
- Soft tissues fossilize more often than you think; we have skin impressions for like 90% of Tyrannosaurus rex’s full body (shoulder blades and neck are the only bits missing)
If pop culture is your only window into extinct animals, then you do not remotely understand how much we know.
We know the entire lifecycle of a tyrannosaurus. We know from the sheer amount of remains we have, from every stange.
We know roughly how they sounded (as the person above me said).
We know they had remarkable vision.
We know they had the second. strongest sense of smell in history.
We know from their bones that they grew to a certain size and stayed there until about 14 or so, then absolutely ballooned up to their adult size in about three or four years.
We know they likely lived in family groups, because we have bones with certainly fatal injuries for a solitary animal (broken legs and such) that are completely healed.
We know exactly how other dinosaurs look, down to colors and patterns, because bones are not the only information that is preserved.
The Sinosauropteryx is one such dinosaur. Because pigmentation molecules were preserved in the feather impressions, we know it’s colors, and it’s tail rings (which one would argue would be it’s “iconic feature.”
(Art credit Julio Lacerda)
Microraptor is another! We know from feather impressions that it had four wings. We know from pigmentation that it was an iredecent black, like a raven.
(Art credit Vitor Silva)
This is not limited to dinosaurs, or feathers. We’ve found pigmentation in scales and skin. We’ve completely reconstructed two extinct penguins, colors and all. We’ve figured out the colors of some non-avian and non-feathered dinosaurs. We can identify evidence of feathers existing on animals without feather impressions.
We have feathered dinosaurs preserved in amber.
We can defer likely behavioral patterns through adaptations we see in bones, and from the environments they were found in. We can see how certain movements evolved through musculature attachments (yes, how muscles attached is often preserved). We know avian flight likely evolved by “accident” by the way early raptorforms moved their arms to strike at their prey.
We also understand behavior in extant animals and can easily speculate likely behaviors in extinct animals. (A predator running for it’s life is not going to exhibit hunting behaviors)
We learn and understand way more from “rocks” than paleontologists are given credit for. And if you watch a movie like Jurassic World, which has no interest in portraying anything with any sort of accuracy, and your take away is “We can’t possibly know anything about these animals,” then you don’t understand science.
As for shrinkwrapped reconstructions, we understand how muscles attach, and how fat works. Artists who lean into shrinkwrapping are are not generally concerned with scientific accuracy, or biology. They’re only concerned with Awesombro.
If true paleoartists tried to reconstruct a hippo, while they naturally would not get every bit correct, it would certainly look like a real animal, and not that alien monster that tumblr is so fond of using as “proof” that paleontologists don’t know anything (an art piece that itself was extreme and satirical, and a condemnation of the particular subset of paleoartists I mentioned earlier)
Every time paleoblr tries to show you how extinct animals actually looked, all we get is a chorus of “thanks i hate it” and “stop ruining dinosaurs!”
Loosing my shit at the knowledge that T-rexes nursed their loved ones back to health
Oh nooo I hadn’t noticed that my cat’s automatic feeder was getting low on food so as usual she dashed off when she heard the machine start but I couldn’t hear the usual sound of her food falling into the bowl so I went to look and my poor cat was just. Sitting there. Staring at her empty food bowl. Then for a second she glanced up at me then right back to her bowl with the biggest, saddest, most bewildered eyes you could ever imagine on such a small creature. I filled her bowl and the machine right away ofc but I still feel a little guilty 😭
My local mayor posted this and I’m mesmerised. Every time I look at it I spot a new problem. It’s like a rorschach test.
Not only did the AI fail to make a functioning UK map despite TONS of accurate maps available, but then a team of people actually thought “that looks about right, that’s probably the North, it’s got at least one Hull that’ll do” and posted it.
York ⁽Yᵒʳᵏ⁾
No you know, it’s easy to hate, but I want this team to tackle another section of rail next. Let’s give them their heads
One of the biggest pains with rail in the north is having to cross the pennines (it’s an issue by road too).
Relocating Manchester Piccadilly to the east of the pennines is clearly a solution to that problem, resulting in much faster connections between Manchester and eastern cities like York, Hull, York, and Hull.
You get it! It’ll take a lot of work, but if we simply align the existing infrastructure with this vision, I reckon we can really identify the roadblocks (Warringtons) to unlocking the potential (Warrington) of the North (Warrington).
Sometimes you send something you found online to a friend because you want to brighten their day, and sometimes you send something you found online to a friend with the precise attitude and bearing of a cat very carefully lining up their paw with the back of another cat’s head.
You know technology literacy is dying because I saw this meme with 76k likes
F11 the full screen button? You’re scared of the full screen button? F10?? It opens the menu bar???
Computers are so scary what if I accidentally hit F12 in a steam game and it takes a screenshot. What if I press shift + F12 while in word and accidentally save my document 😖
If you had to learn what the F keys on your computer do through me reblogging this post, then I’m glad you did. Computer literacy is not a skill that gets taught anymore, and it is absolutely one that needs to be taught in order to be learned. Don’t ever feel bad for not knowing something, but ☝️ don’t ever stop learning learning about your environment, the tools you use, and especially the people around you
I saw a good thread on bluesky about why “hurhurhur generative AI haters just never used it!” is largely full of shit and, yes, the skeptics actually hate it and question its utility for a reason lol
Like…at best, a lot of people who actually know wtf they’re doing realize that they waste more time having to proofread AI generations than they would if they just did the task by themselves to begin with. I really feel like, outside of certain specialized fields, this type of AI is only “useful” if you’re incompetent lol
We are being heavily pressured (forced) into using AI at work and this is truly what I have found. They have an enterprise model of several AIs (allegedly they don’t share data with the company/model but I’m skeptical and even if true isn’t the case for people without an enterprise model, which is nearly everyone).
If you are in the same boat as me, here’s so advice.
Consider looking for another job. Because there is a good chance that your employer believes that they can replace people with AI. They’re using you to test it. (I just resigned and I stop working for them in the end of January).
If you have the ability to choose which models to use, I found Claude to be the best for “research” and normal sounding writing. Notebook LM has the least amount of hallucinations, but requires you to load in documents/websites.
AI is less likely to hallucinate if you ask it to summarize something you give it than other requests.
If you are asking AI to research/pull information, have it give you links for easier fact checking (it will always have false answers among proper ones).
If you are forced to use it but have some say in what you use it for, always give it the least important work we’re inaccuracy is less likely to be a problem.
I also think it is important that we raise the discourse on AI to “people who use AI are yucky” to a workers rights issue. Increasingly the conversation at the workplace for white collar workers is “use AI or get fired.” There’s usually no training given, nor any understanding from the C-suite level of any of AI’s failings. Rather than embracing purity culture, this should becone a workers rights issue we rally around.
Doctors to trans people: are you really sure you want these hormones? I don’t think you are. I don’t believe you. There are risks, you know? It will change your body. Tell me your entire life story and I’ll decide whether you’ve wanted this for long enough. Oh you didn’t know when you were 5 years old? Yikes, ok. I think I’ll need you to jump through all these hoops and then we can maybe consider it in…100 years
Doctors to fat people who literally didn’t ask: have you heard of this surgery that’ll mess up your digestive system, just absolutely fucking mutilate it? Mess with your ability to eat and drink normally? Potentially fuck up your ability to absorb nutrients? Yes, and you don’t want it? Are you suuuure? Are you really sure? I’m going to bring this up 1000 more times just to be sure also there’s this diabetes drug…
My local mayor posted this and I’m mesmerised. Every time I look at it I spot a new problem. It’s like a rorschach test.
Not only did the AI fail to make a functioning UK map despite TONS of accurate maps available, but then a team of people actually thought “that looks about right, that’s probably the North, it’s got at least one Hull that’ll do” and posted it.
ALT
