Inspired by this video

For US.

Say no to repealing Section 230.

Say no to internet censorship.

Quick info on calling here. Doesn't take too long: https://x.com/omarsbigsister/status/1998542899915395414?s=46 [ID in alt]

DO NOT COME TO THE US FOR TOURISM!!!!!!

I hope this is true.

I am exceptionally lucky in that my parents never hit me, grounded me, confiscated my things, banned me from my hobbies or threatened any of these actions to make me behave as a kid. as an adult it has made me realise how very very long a road most people have to traverse before they can take a statement like 'no rule that must be enforced by threat is legitimate' seriously.

I really do mean this sympathetically. we are not well equipped as a culture to grapple with the implications of power and violence, because we are intimately saturated in it from birth. cruelty feels natural, and that's hard to unlearn.

a bunch of things that I know are going to sound really corny (which honestly I think is half the cultural problem - the idea that non-coercive parenting is touchy-feely, ineffectual or just kind of cringe - but that could be a whole other post)

the main thing was that they always explained things to me. if I wanted something I couldn't have, they explained why (from 'we can't afford that', 'it's bad for you', 'it's dangerous', all the way up to 'it's made by a big company that treats its workers badly, and we don't want to give them money'). If I threw a tantrum, they either waited it out until I got tired and bored or they redirected what we were doing ('we have to be patient and wait in line. if we don't wait in line, we can't go into the theatre. we can't wait in line if you scream and upset people. okay then, we're going home.')

beyond that, they always spoke to me like a full person. they asked my opinion on things and took it seriously, and asked me why as much as I asked them. apparently I had a phase as a toddler where I always wanted to be the first one on the swings / down the slide, and would throw almighty fits about it, until my mum took me aside one day and said 'why do you want to be first? are you worried the slide will get used up?' I laughed like it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard, and never kicked up a fuss about taking turns after that.

on the granular level, they focused on positives over negatives. My mum would draw little good behaviour charts for me, featuring e.g. me walking a long winding path through the woods with my soft toys. the path would be made up of, say, 30 stones, and every day that I was well behaved I'd earn a sticker on one of them. when I reached the end of the path, I got to pick a treat. something like a new plastic animal for my collection, or a day trip to the aquarium.

I do remember them sitting me down once and asking me to come up with what I thought would be an appropriate punishment if I ever did something really bad. I think my first suggestion was something like 'no TV', which was a real nice try because we didn't have a TV at the time. I don't remember what I finally decided on, it might have been 'no dessert for a week'. We wrote it down together and I signed my name, and they sealed it in an important looking envelope which they put in my dad's filing cabinet (for important documents). This would be unsealed if I ever did something Really Bad. the eventuality never came up, but the act of participating in the exercise kept me mostly on the straight and narrow. It's funny, the conceptual punishment itself wasn't even that bad. It was the seriousnes of the adult commitment I'd made to Behaving Well that did the trick.

When I DID do the standard naughty stuff, my parents would just sit me down and explain to me seriously why it was wrong and what impact it had caused for other people. They'd ask what motivated me, and why I acted on those feelings in that specific way. They would, of course, tell me they were disappointed. If necessary, they would tell me how things would have to change as a result of what I'd done. They were always, always open to hearing out my side of the story, and always, always took my feelings seriously even if they disapproved of my behaviour. they would ask if I was ready to say sorry and get a hug. if I wasn't ready, if I was still upset or angry, they would give me space in my room and ask me to come find them when I wanted to make up. and I always did, because I always knew they would accept it.

when the weird relative shows up to the farm

i have never seen an animal moving this silly

“Camels are far too intelligent to admit to being intelligent”

“Camels are largely made of knees, going in all directions”

“Camels gallop by throwing their feet as far away from them as possible and then running to keep up”

-Sir Terry Pratchett, discworld series

''when did we all become so performative'' idk man when the threat of being recorded at any time and posted for milions to see without your knowledge became normalised.

actively enforced a rule for myself that i can't edit every single sentence until a chapter has been written in all its ugly disjointedness. and actually ended up writing instead of editing every single sentence. why the FUCK does that work

The reason they make you do group project at school is as a preventative measure against falling into conspiracy theories as an adult. The vast majority of the population can and will come out of the experience with a much better understanding of just how goddamn impossible it is to make multiple people do what they were supposed to do, everything they were supposed to do, and nothing but what they were supposed to do. You can't make five people do that, and yet billions of people are keeping this supposed machine rolling?

Congress is now considering the appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security, whose funding runs out at the end of January. Call your members of Congress and tell them to vote NO on any bill that increases ICE's funding. Please demand that the DHS appropriations bill prohibit ICE and Border Patrol agents from carrying guns and that it unambiguously declare that agents do not have absolute immunity under the law if they harm civilians. Also tell them that any bill must restrict ICE and Border Patrol’s ability to conduct dragnet arrest operations and target people based on their race, language or accent. And the bill must clarify that ICE agents are liable under civil and criminal law if they harm civilians. Do this as soon as you can. To reach your representative or senator, call the U.S. Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Tell them the state and city where you live. They will connect you to any member’s office.

Official Post of Massachusetts

I read this kinda thing and really realize I gotta figure out how to treat myself better when it comes to work/life

WIKIPEDIA IS 25 TODAY MAKE SOME NOISE!!!!!!!!!!!! [Their celebration article here]

there is not NEARLY enough noise on this post !!! CELEBRATE ITS BIRTHDAYYYYYY