Or just go to browse and hang out! I promise it will be inspiring :)
Jesus Fucking Christ the whole "your brain stops developing at 25" myth continues to do all kinds of harm
Like excuse me for being harsh but if you can't talk about the politics of age and power without leaning on biodeterminist pseudoscience, that's a sign that you're not qualified to talk about the politics of age and power, and you should let someone else with a better developed framework do the talking instead
Like I fully understand why it feels like your brain changes at that age. For people following a traditional US education path, it's the point in your life when you've been out of college for as long as you've been in college. And if you preceded that with a traditional k-12 education, you've already primed yourself to see your life in cycles of roughly four years long: five years of elementary school, three years of middle school, four years of high school. And underneath it all the four year rhythms of society and social convention: leap year, the Olympics, and, in the US, the presidential election cycle.
And what this all means is that you should be immensely skeptical of that feeling that says "this is a universal truth about human nature because it feels like one"
wish the labor energy was focused on sectors of material, positive production and not "omg my fav actor". its not positive as in "bad or good", positive as in net growth. positive as in, us collectively fulfilling those bottom two rungs on maslow's hierarchy and continuing to have humans abound, which is a good thing. there are no limits to human growth with the correct allocation and use of resources, and control of these sectors of positive growth is what each of us has been separated from in order to induce helplessness and wage slavery. people in the past survived on less than $2 for most of history, happily, but things are different when you live in a cultivated and controlled modern-western(ized) environment. really weird that the movements i was once involved with because identity-based oppression never got to the 'class' part inextricably linked to the conditions we live in. yeah, its boring but... cause, effect. a bit of boredom is worth it in order to find out how to actually own yourself. right now, most of us are renting being alive.
when i dismiss the attention these actually non-essential strikers get, its not about my respect for a career path. it's just, physics. it's cart before horse. it's treating the symptom, not the disease. leveraging industries such as shipping, fuel and energy, rare earth metals, all the stuff our lives run on are the key. no movies without power. no starbucks, without shipping and fuel. the hierarchy is not a moral judgement, it is a material appraisal of what is to be done. really weird that learning about the disease, the details of how they do what they do to us beyond "capitalism bad", seems uncommon. im pushing myself to lift the veil more and more. i want to shake people out of the identity discourse-democratic party allegiance-liberal reform, like this is not how we get to where we want to be.
really weird that the actual economy is never explored in spaces i'd find most comfortable, where i'd say people align with me on identity or in shallow assessment political alignment. people don't like learning about the real shit, clearly a lot of people are too fragile for it but like. ww3 is breathing down our throats? this is where i'd love to see people beat back against obvious US astroturfs abroad, or our rogue gubment doing the hershey squirts on the constitution? just vague "capitalism" and the same tired feminist 101 discourse from 2012. fuckin africa? nothing? that's a lot of potential wasted.
shake off that doomer shit and do something constructive, even if it's just getting yourself right. we all actually want the same shit, and we can have it.
wait americans can just. buy massive bottles of ibuprofen what the fuck
ONE THOUSAND TABLETS. ONE THOUSAND OF THEM??? im jealous we only get like 16
when you’re on here like ‘mmm yummy five ibuprofen make headache go away’ you’re not struggling with little packets you’re just straight chugging that shit what the fuck
i imagine its compensation for not actually having healthcare
I mean this is kinda literally true.
It's what people take for their RSIs they get from working two jobs that wear their bodies down, and insurance won't pay for much if any physical therapy, which can't stop you from getting another injury anyway, and doctors hate prescribing other shit that works better because everyone's apparently an addict-in-waiting.
It's what people take for blazing headaches your doctor refuses to take seriously, or doesn't want to medicate. Or for other pain they can't find a reason for and thus verify, so they don't want to give you anything else that works.
It's what you take for the tooth pain until you either save the money for the dentist or it breaks enough to become an emergency which is SOMETIMES covered by medical insurance that doesn't otherwise offer dental.
It's what you take when you just feel like nonspecific shit, and it helps, either because placebo effect, or because the constant stress of living a shit life elevates your cortisol to batshit levels and ibuprofen brings the inflammation down just a bit. Or maybe it stops some sort of pain you're so used to you don't really notice it. You can't tell anymore.
But you can buy 1000 ibuprofen and it will last you and your partner over a year, which is a lot cheaper than any other remedy, and getting a shitton makes life easier because you aren't having to buy more every ten minutes.
Congrats, if you live in the USA, Dr. Ibuprofen is one of your first line medical professionals. And damn if she ain't better than any of the others you can afford.
Uhh IDK how to tell you this but Jesus Christ no, they aren't 10 mg, that's ANT PISS. I have a bottle of 200 mg by my bed and another huge bottle in the living room, and you take them two at a time if it's kinda-sorta bad (old tendon injury you couldn't afford to have fixed so it's fucked for the rest of your life is acting up and you need to bring the inflammation down so you can walk for six or eight hours) and four at a time if the doctor says so (day after surgery, major dental, or you need a hammer dose to knock some pain back before maintenance dosing) and we like it that way because we can hardly get other meds without dogfighting for it. Yeah, you only do this a couple or maybe three times a day for as short a stint as you can tolerate, but it's way more than 10 mg LMAO. That wouldn't help a cat scratch.
Like you don't wanna do this for a long time, but also, sometimes your physical therapy ran out and you don't have a choice until next year's six to ten appointments kick in.
EDIT:
Wal Mart. $15.
We aren't going to live long enough to get kidney disease. The heart disease and diabetes from constant stress are gonna get us first, if COVID, long COVID, or self destruction don't. We don't know what kidneys are or do anyway, our science education is shit. They get stones. That's what we know.
Sorry to be dark, I'm mostly joking. But really. The answer is either No, or We Don't Care.
my NSAID of choice is actually naproxen. Back when my chronic pain was first becoming a thing and I didn't know how to manage flare ups, I ended up on Ibuprofen for so long (two or three years doing a maintenance dose near daily) that I gave have myself a sensitivity to it which resulted in a huge rash over my legs that wouldn't heal. Now I can't take it for more than a couple days without breaking into hives.
Switched over to naproxen; it's harsher, but stronger, and I figure out my body's tells. Now, if I feel a flare up coming, I can take a hammer dose (500 mg) lay down flat with a heat pad for a few hours then follow up up with a maintenance dose of naproxen 12 hours later, and if I'm quick enough, that will knock most off the worst symptoms before they escalate. I can go months between needing to medicate. Actually I think, I'm coming up on a year since my last major flare up?
But yeah, OTC NSAIDs are what keep this country running.
What if [Trayvon] Martin were armed? What if he was able to defend himself? Had the situation resulted in the death of George Zimmerman rather than that of Martin, it is unlikely that the public would have been as outraged and galvanized into action to the same extent.
[…]When we build politics around standards of legitimate victimhood that require passive sacrifice, we will build a politics that requires a dead black boy to make its point. It’s not surprising that the nation or even the black leadership have failed to rally behind CeCe McDonald, a black trans woman who was convicted of second-degree manslaughter after a group of racist, transphobic white people attacked her and her friends, cutting McDonald’s cheek with a glass bottle and provoking an altercation that led to the death of a white man who had a swastika tattoo. Trans women of color who are involved in confrontations that result in the death of their attackers are criminalized for their survival. When Akira Jackson, a black trans woman, stabbed and killed her boyfriend after he beat her with a baseball bat, she was given a four-year sentence for manslaughter.
[…]Rejecting the politics of innocence is not about assuming a certain theoretical posture or adopting a certain perspective—it is a lived position.
jackie wang, carceral capitalism
intent isn’t a magic spell that absolves one of responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions
mossiestpiglet asked:
Do you have any ideas or an example script of what to say when calling a representative in regards to that particular anti-trans bill?
gwydionmisha answered:
I’m sure someone has written something better than these, but off the top of my head:
If you are calling a democratic rep maybe something like: Bodily autonomy is an essential human right. Please stand firm to protect the right to gender affirming care and abortion.
If you are calling a Republican say something like: Parents should have a right to decide if their children should have a medical treatment or not. Don’t vote to take away parental rights by banning gender affirming care.
Readers please chime in with other options if you have them.
Oh, generally it doesn’t matter what reasons you give on a phone call as long as you convey what issue you’re weighing in on and what you want the representative to do. (And convey that you are their constituent, if you are.) You don’t talk to the representative, you talk to whoever they pay to answer the phone, and they tally up how many people called in support of vs against a thing and the politician takes that as an indication of how much support/opposition this particular issue has among their constituency.
(Or in general? But people who have the ability to vote them out of office get more weight.)
That may sound kinda disappointing, but…1. It makes it easier because you don’t have to figure out how to frame it, you can just be direct and to the point (I mean if you want to give a reason go ahead, but you don’t have to, and if you do give a reason it can be what you actually believe and doesn’t have to be something the politician is likely to say themselves, or find convincing because that’s not actually what this is about) and 2. politicians generally figure that people who take the effort to call represent a much greater number of people who have opinions but didn’t call. And phone calls are often effective in changing politicians’ votes, especially in aggregate.
Anyways, big high five to anyone who does this.
if you can,
be pleasant to the phone person. yeeeeeah they got a job with the official fash but, often these are young people saddled with a deep need to Do Something and Help the World and they’ve been told all their lives that this is the only way to do that. they’re usually an order of magnitude smarter and realer than anyone in charge of them, and they’re quite often straddling a rare fence in which they’re smart enough to have gotten where they are & understand what they’re learning.
just be non-harmful to the phone people is what I’m saying
no offense to my peeps in their late teens early twenties but it seems like the 18-22 yr old crowd are the ones pushing the new wave of puritanism these days, but i dont actually have any real evidence to back that up
without being too assuming, i think we kind of went full circle. there’s a tendency to relate sexuality with perversion out of a sense of self preservation. much of the information instilled in kids who grew up in the last 20 years had been targeted toward safety and boundary setting and being able to identify when you’re being sexualized or exploited.
and while that’s an extremely important lesson to teach and learn, many of these lessons were or are being taught by older millennials who have undergone trauma of their own, many of whom do not know how to cope or deal with it.
my hope is as this generation matures and grows they’ll begin to understand the difference between being a sexual human being and being sexualized by another person. i don’t think there’s anything but good intention behind the “puritanism” that a lot of younger people exhibit. i just think that there was a significant lack of context to much of what they were taught during their formative years — or not taught, more aptly.
As an actual 22 year old it's reeeeeally weird watching a 33 year old make up a story about how "Kids These Days" are all puritanical paranoid reactionaries because "older millennials taught us to be over-cautious" to validate the baseless conjecture of a 29 year old who explicitly admitted they had no evidence to back up their incredibly bizarre claim about a group of legal adults.
Y'all sound like boomers.
taking a step back, you do realize that you just had a very reactionary response to people simply discussing the dynamics of sexuality between generations of adults, right?
it was not a bizarre claim. it was an anecdotal claim, and it could very well be that the “puritanical” part of the generation were discussing could just be louder and more online. this rolling stone article addresses exactly that fact and is a good counter view to what i posted. it’s a decent read and it’s from 2~ years ago.
honestly, i could be wrong. i’m open to that. but i’m just saying: classifying a conversation about sexuality today on a platform where conversations about sexual dynamics between adults regularly takes place doesn’t necessarily help. i understand your perspective.. but you’re kind of proving the point
reactionary puritans always shriek out the same spiels, resort to the same kind of shaming tactics, & rely on assumptions of popular prejudice for their ‘arguments’
neat how the "cults are dangerous!" posts are so often coming from the charismatic leaders of groups organized around a shared belief, seeking to build their audience…
and as ever, I wonder what these folks imagine it's going to look like? who's going to suffer and who's going to profit by continuing to blame alternative religions & lifestyles for abusiveness? exploitation & mind control? lies being presented as the truth?
nothing - nothing good comes from these righteous crusades.
no amount of Dealing With the Enemy is going to do a single fucking worthwhile thing for Your Loved Ones if you're not going to take the basic step of assessing reality, and really understanding: who is your enemy? who is causing you harm? Kali devotees? Hare Krishna? Satanists? Metalheads?
it's a trip that 100% of people who've yelled at me for being pro-cult angrily explain to me how they escaped a church when they were young. Like…
do you really not see it? how your understanding of the world of human life was warped? the racist bullshit you're spewing every time this nasty old moral majority diarrhea leaves your mouth?
if you spend a lot of time arguing for the safety of the natural biome, the end of persecution (for any group at all), the cessation of destructive patterns of civilization, you really need to examine the concepts you are responding to. If you are reactionary versus cults, you are one of the Enemies. Not just of the human communities (cults), but an Enemy of Life.
I honestly do not give a single shit about how hard that is for you to face. You had plenty of opportunities to just not be a vile fucking volunteer stormtrooper of hate. Fuck off from all the activities involving groups until you get your evil bullshit under control.
Learn to control your weapons, or stfu and gtfo.