VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
No bio...
User ID: 64
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
15hr ago
One question would be whether American Eagle actually considers this press coverage a negative. Edgy ads that fill opinion pages are hardly unheard of. But is it actually selling jeans?
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
16hr ago
This seems true, but it seems a bit funny to me because in many ways it's easier to change your figure (via diet and exercise) than your face (beyond haircuts and grooming). The human figure is a very functional thing that conforms to what you do with it.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
23hr ago
Maybe the Smithsonian poster was the wrong example, but the tone and content of the comment I replied to struck me, at least, very much the mirror of a Kendi or DiAngelo. To moderately change the quote:
[white] people make [white] institutions, which in turn generate a consensus reality wherein [Whiteness] is obviously true and correct, with contrary facts elided or buried.
Googling for "interlocking system of control" shows at least one notable book from 1982 (The Highest Stage of White Supremacy by John W. Cell) that uses exactly that phrase to describe white supremacy:
A complex, interlocking system of control that regulated the lives and to some extent the minds of millions of people on both sides of the color line. [...] The principal function of the segregationist ideology was to soften class and ethnic antagonisms among whites, subordinating internal conflicts to the unifying conception of race.
I'm willing to take the original comment in good faith, but it really seems like it's perilously close to becoming the tribalism I take it as literally arguing against: "[outgroup] has rigged the system to keep [ingroup] down!" is, while in both cases probably true to some extent, is a meme I don't think is helpful in most circumstances.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
To play along with the analogy, the Gom Jabbar doesn't work if the test is safe. It may not be enough to run the test in a sandbox: it's easy enough to behave "correctly" a limited test, and far harder to consistently buckle down and get work done instead of Motteposting watching TikTok videos all day.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
Peripherally, I think your point has a kernel of truth, but I worry that you're constructing a worldview in a direction that is prone to revanchism and decoupling from reality. Your complaints sound uncomfortably close to the logic behind that infamous Smithsonian poster, but complaining about blue, rather than white power structures.
At least, it makes me uncomfortable even though I think there are certainly elements of truth to it.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
She's refusing to see a therapist alone or with me, she's refused to see a psychiatrist.
If you have the capacity, you might consider talking to a therapist for yourself, partially because this is a lot to deal with, and partially because they may be more familiar with resources and ideas that may be helpful to her.
It probably isn't much, but you have my sympathies and prayers, anonymous internet friend.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
WW2 affected more people than just jews.
At the risk of invoking a meme around here, "What did you think 'Never Again' looked like? Vibes? Essays? Poetry?"
Of course it potentially meant finding or making a safe place for themselves and investing in defense spending to be too thorny to tangle with again. That mentality clearly seems to explain how they interact with parties that call for their deaths regularly (see the Houthi flag, for example). Many of those calls come from Muslims, but I'm not sure they like Richard Spencer any better.
But that 'Never Again' thread runs in other groups too: see defense spending in Poland and Finland, arguably China and Korea too. Or why you shouldn't ask the South American with a German last name when their ancestors moved to the New World (not always 1945, but it's common enough).
After some thought, and spending time with kids, I have come to the opinion that my own transition to adulthood is probably best delineated by when I stopped being bored: the world is an interesting place and there is far more stuff I want to do and skills I want to acquire than time to do them all. I won't say I don't procrastinate ever, but I am never sitting around wondering what to do. Kids aren't very good at this, in my experience.
To consider a hare-brained thought, The Internet is a (questionably ethical) form of Gom Jabbar. "What's in the box?" "Slop. Endless slop. And also the collective knowledge and creative works of mankind."
The test is whether you fall for any of the well-trod failure modes of The Internet, or actually drive to and engage in self-actualization as Maslow intended.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
Plenty of contemporary commentary, admittedly not all from conservative partisans, used the phrase "taking advantage", which IMO is at least suggestive of the question, but not directly implying non-consent.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
If you're going to consider "coersion" and power dynamics in this context, the question of whether an intern (age 22) can consent to "sexual relations" (depending on the meaning of the word "is") with the de facto Leader of the Free World is going to come up at some point. And I don't think it's a question either side really wants to dig up and grapple with deep down: Clinton mostly won the issue, but modern leftist views on the issue look a lot more like Republicans in the '90s than either side would care to admit.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2d ago
Even with that, the PA doesn't really control Gaza anyway.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2d ago
I don't think they recognize any state's claim to the territory, do they? I guess that's not completely unprecedented, but I think in practice it is for populated territory.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2d ago
That seems to depend on who is making the judgment, and whether the 'potshot' is an unguided missile launched at civilian population centers (which happen to include grocery stores, and maybe a few valid military targets) or IDF forces firing at what I assume they deem (validly or not) 'suspicious' actors seeking to steal or disrupt humanitarian aid distribution.
Neither really brings joy, though.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2d ago
Today I learned this distinction. Thanks!
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2d ago
If Isreal decided "fuck it, Gaza's borders are open. We're just gonna sit behind the border wall and do our thing, the people of Gaza are free to do whatever" then yeah, I would assign them zero responsibility.
They did do this in 2005 when they removed (sometimes at gunpoint) all the Jewish settlers in Gaza. The naval blockade and walls went up years later in response to the rockets and other attacks. I think this is part of why the Israelis question whether peace is possible at this point: Gaza's government, and arguably it's populace that hasn't overthrown it, supports attacks on Israel, even questionably effective ones, at almost any cost to themselves.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2d ago
For large browsers I think the US wins again, with moose.
Not for the bison? They're heavier, but less gangly.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2d ago
We allow, even encourage, some very long comments, and I think it'd be helpful to have a way to fold the comment itself without hiding it's responses. Some sites have 'click to show more ' on long posts.
The CSS highlighting of new comments since last page load is fantastic, though.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
3d ago
I'm not sure exactly when it disappeared, but that sounds about right. I know the laws still allowed it in some cases through at least 2000, but I never saw it myself. My parents have stories of it happening.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
3d ago
I feel like this is missing some obvious "thirteenth tribe" joke, maybe in reference to the great Mormon work of literature Battlestar Galactica.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
3d ago
I know a Jewish family that has carefully acquired and maintained multiple passports across generations rather openly based on the lived experience of their parents (and grandparents, and great grandparents) during WWII. The cynics would say "rootless cosmopolitans" here (and maybe there is an element of that), but having heard their Holocaust stories second-hand, I see why they care so much.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
3d ago
Anecdotally, corporal punishment in (rural) schools was ubiquitous through well after WWII. I'm not going to defend the practice, but there are plenty of family stories of it within living memory.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
3d ago
I suspect China's relationship dynamics are more related to gender asymmetry than divorce laws. Or at least it's a huge confounder that merits consideration.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
3d ago
It would seem like the "millionaire next door" approach would work plausibly for rich guys not quite rich enough to be public figures. Maybe that happens often enough (has golden handcuffs from startup acquisition, still drives a Prius), but I've never seen it explicitly called out as a strategy. If you're rich enough and a public figure such that Google knows who you are (doctors, lawyers), that seems harder.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
3d ago
There are fairly common news reports of them in several California and Colorado cities that I can recall offhand.
Honestly I've never been a fan of ones too large to look believable --- there's a reasonable range that adjusts with frame size.
More options
Context Copy link