October 2024

jenroses:

therainstheyaredropping:

homunculus-argument:

Imagine if you met someone who can’t eat watermelon. Not that they’re allergic or unable somehow, but they just haven’t figured out how to do that. So you’re like “what the hell do you mean? it works just like eating anything else, you open your mouth, sink your teeth in, take a bite and chew. If you can bite, chew and swallow, you should be able to eat a watermelon.”

And they agree that yes, they do know how to eat, in theory. The problem is the watermelon. Surely, if they figured out where to start, they’d figure out how to do it, but they have no clue how to get started with it.

This goes back and forth. No, it’s not an emotional issue, they’re not afraid of the watermelon. They can eat any other fruit, other sweet things, and other watery things (“it’s watery?” they ask you). Is it the colour? Do they have a problem eating things that are green on the outside and red on the inside?

“It’s red on the inside?”

Wait, they’ve never seen the inside? At this point you have to ask them how, exactly, they eat the watermelon. So to demonstrate, they take a whole, round, uncut watermelon, and try to bite straight into it. Even if they could bite through the crust, there’s no way to get human jaws around it.

“Oh, you’re supposed to cut it first. You cut the crust open and only chew through the insides.”

And they had no idea. All their life this person has had no idea how to eat a watermelon, despite of being told again and again and again that it’s easy, it’s ridiculous to struggle with something so simple, there’s no way that someone just can’t eat a watermelon, how can you even mange to be bad at something as fucking simple as eating watermelon.

If someone can’t do something after being repeatedly told to “just do it”, there might be some key component missing that one side has no idea about, and the other side assumed was so obvious it goes without mention.

Yep.

https://drmaciver.substack.com/p/how-to-do-everything had a nice list of additional examples like this, with (non-)obvious major insights with regard to opening stitched bags, cleaning your bathroom floor, using a search engine, catching a ball, pinging somebody, proving a theorem, playing sudoku, passing as “normal”, improving your writing, generating novel ideas, and solving your problem.

If you’d asked me six months ago how to get better at something, I’d probably have pointed you to how to do hard things. I still think this is a good approach and you should do it, but I now think it’s the wrong starting point and I’ve been undervaluing small insights. […]

I think my revised belief is that if you are stuck at how to get better at something, spend a little while assuming there’s just some trick to it you’ve missed. You can try to generate the trick yourself, but it’s probably easier to learn it by observing someone else being good at the thing, asking them some questions, and seeing if you have any lightbulb moment.

I always look for the trick before I start. This is why I can build a computer and repair an appliance and sharpen knives and figure out which tool to buy. Mostly YouTube videos.

argumate:

I voted in the Victorian state election on Monday (no credit, it’s compulsory) but the election itself isn’t until the weekend, the polling place has been open all week and practically empty besides the people working there so you can just waltz in any old time and to the business without doing anything barbaric like waiting in a goddamn line.

except of course if something dramatic happens tomorrow and I happened to want to change my vote well obviously I couldn’t, I’ve already voted! and conversely I could have just as well placed my vote a month ago, I don’t think it has changed since then, so keeping the polling place open for one (1) week before the election is a fairly arbitrary choice – why not allow you to vote any time, more than once?

this would immediately present a problem for secret ballots: the reason I can’t change my vote is that it’s not linked to my name, so repeated voting would be cumulative, but this should be easy to fix if my vote is stored under an opaque hash and the link between that hash and my identity is stored elsewhere, much like the way postal votes are mailed in a double envelope so that the identity can be separate from the ballot.

at that point there would be little need for elections as such and even less need for polling as you could change your vote at any time, and it would open up possibilities for more experiments with liquid democracy and more fine grained representation.

argumate:

I voted in the Victorian state election on Monday (no credit, it’s compulsory) but the election itself isn’t until the weekend, the polling place has been open all week and practically empty besides the people working there so you can just waltz in any old time and to the business without doing anything barbaric like waiting in a goddamn line.

except of course if something dramatic happens tomorrow and I happened to want to change my vote well obviously I couldn’t, I’ve already voted! and conversely I could have just as well placed my vote a month ago, I don’t think it has changed since then, so keeping the polling place open for one (1) week before the election is a fairly arbitrary choice – why not allow you to vote any time, more than once?

this would immediately present a problem for secret ballots: the reason I can’t change my vote is that it’s not linked to my name, so repeated voting would be cumulative, but this should be easy to fix if my vote is stored under an opaque hash and the link between that hash and my identity is stored elsewhere, much like the way postal votes are mailed in a double envelope so that the identity can be separate from the ballot.

at that point there would be little need for elections as such and even less need for polling as you could change your vote at any time, and it would open up possibilities for more experiments with liquid democracy and more fine grained representation.

argumate:

I voted in the Victorian state election on Monday (no credit, it’s compulsory) but the election itself isn’t until the weekend, the polling place has been open all week and practically empty besides the people working there so you can just waltz in any old time and to the business without doing anything barbaric like waiting in a goddamn line.

except of course if something dramatic happens tomorrow and I happened to want to change my vote well obviously I couldn’t, I’ve already voted! and conversely I could have just as well placed my vote a month ago, I don’t think it has changed since then, so keeping the polling place open for one (1) week before the election is a fairly arbitrary choice – why not allow you to vote any time, more than once?

this would immediately present a problem for secret ballots: the reason I can’t change my vote is that it’s not linked to my name, so repeated voting would be cumulative, but this should be easy to fix if my vote is stored under an opaque hash and the link between that hash and my identity is stored elsewhere, much like the way postal votes are mailed in a double envelope so that the identity can be separate from the ballot.

at that point there would be little need for elections as such and even less need for polling as you could change your vote at any time, and it would open up possibilities for more experiments with liquid democracy and more fine grained representation.

super-metroid:

toytowns:

memeuplift:

argumate:

humanity-and-society:

argumate:

the fact that we have a global economy but no way of coordinating it seems like one of the biggest challenges humanity faces, although arguably that’s just a corollary of our inability to coordinate anything else at the global level.

Out of curiousity, do other countries have way too many religious folks who froth at the mouth at the sign of any potential one-world anything or is that just a USA thing?

I think there’s a differing valence there where people inside the US fret about One World Government run by some amorphous combination of the UN, the Pope, the Illuminati, or whatever while people outside the US already have One World Government and it’s run by the US.

frightstricken:

frightstricken:

But are you normal about your friend who wears the corrupted amulet?

Do you allow your friend to spill blood as the amulet demands? Do you accept the amulet as a sapient force whose needs are important and must be met without question? Do you give the amulet a little kissy whe n it gets lonely

queer-as-city-folk:

queer-as-city-folk:

queer-as-city-folk:

The American Dream is kinda bullshit, I really don’t want a wife and 3 kids and a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence and 2 cars in the driveway.

I want like an apartment or condo in a midrise building on a street with street trees and a small cafe on the corner across from the grocery store where I can walk to a train station that has a train system that goes across the entire city. And a gay boyfriend

I might be willing to live in a streetcar suburb with a small shotgun house where I can take a streetcar across the city and there’s a cute restaurant and a barber and a grocer and an artists studio on the main road that I can walk to every night

jarnt8:

the-lumpfish-king:

kira-serialfaggot:

dehydratedlydia:

If I was Joe Biden and dropped out I would have told everyone to follow tumblr user Jarnt8 on tumblr dot com as my last act

If I was *insert presidential candidate here* and I won the election I would thank Jarnt8 and say that my campaign wouldn’t have been a success without tumblr user Jarnt8

When I become the supreme ruler of not only the seas, but the land and sky too, I will be sure to erect a massive statue in honor of tumblr user Jarnt8. Without Jarnt8’s valuable help this invasion would not have proceeded nearly as smoothly.

oneheadtoanother:

talldarkandhersome-deactivated2:

ashwantsafreepalestine:

ALT

View on Twitter

“Ireland should be conquered.”

Zionism is a disease.

I will reiterate:

Generally speaking if your enemy is the Irish, you’re the bad guy.

kabretoss:

digitaldiscipline:

tomboy014:

dabouse:

tomboy014:

dabouse:

formerlyanon:

beggars-opera:

The old school lack of transparency on tumblr is amazing because you assume the people you follow must all be equivalent to you and then you see someone write “I brought my youngest to college today” and someone else write “my mom wouldn’t let me listen to Ariana Grande when I was a kid” and then your head explodes

and we need that! keeps us humble. 

Then I’m just like WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU’RE AN ADULT

It goes the other way, too, because WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU’RE A CHILD?!!

I’m 16, that’s like, barely a child

I’m in my 30s. You are baby

I’m older than both of you in a trenchcoat.

honestly one of the best things we can do for ourselves is realize that people of different ages than us can still be the same kind of person as us. it’s humbling and it gives everyone involved a sense of continuity, and it busts those stupid generational stereotypes media is so fond of.

our-queer-experience:

anti-terf-posts:

our-queer-experience:

our-queer-experience:

theres a reason lots of kids develop gender dysphoria around 10-14 and its not because its a social contagion but its because puberty is really fucking distressing when you’re trans, and thats when it becomes too much to handle.

“this kids develop a problem with their assigned sex at birth when their assigned sex at birth characteristics begin emerging… suspicious.”

official anti terf post

im so honored 😭

xbuster:

justanotherhornycatgirl:

i need everyone on this entire platform to understand that acting like pedophiles will inevitably rape children unless we persecute them is Exactly the same fucked up logic that homophobic straight girls use to argue that they cant share a private space with a lesbian bc she might rape them

or, you know, the entirety of the trans bathroom bullshit

these are the people you are rhetorically siding with when you make that argument

justanotherhornycatgirl:

i need everyone on this entire platform to understand that acting like pedophiles will inevitably rape children unless we persecute them is Exactly the same fucked up logic that homophobic straight girls use to argue that they cant share a private space with a lesbian bc she might rape them

or, you know, the entirety of the trans bathroom bullshit

these are the people you are rhetorically siding with when you make that argument

justanotherhornycatgirl:

i need everyone on this entire platform to understand that acting like pedophiles will inevitably rape children unless we persecute them is Exactly the same fucked up logic that homophobic straight girls use to argue that they cant share a private space with a lesbian bc she might rape them

or, you know, the entirety of the trans bathroom bullshit

these are the people you are rhetorically siding with when you make that argument

justanotherhornycatgirl:

i need everyone on this entire platform to understand that acting like pedophiles will inevitably rape children unless we persecute them is Exactly the same fucked up logic that homophobic straight girls use to argue that they cant share a private space with a lesbian bc she might rape them

or, you know, the entirety of the trans bathroom bullshit

these are the people you are rhetorically siding with when you make that argument

justanotherhornycatgirl:

i need everyone on this entire platform to understand that acting like pedophiles will inevitably rape children unless we persecute them is Exactly the same fucked up logic that homophobic straight girls use to argue that they cant share a private space with a lesbian bc she might rape them

or, you know, the entirety of the trans bathroom bullshit

these are the people you are rhetorically siding with when you make that argument

joeyridersvoid:

This sounds like a shitpost but people should be allowed to be horny. As in, sexuality is just part of life for most people and there’s no reason for consensual sexual behavior to be punished. A celebrity getting “caught” at a sex club shouldn’t be a scandal. No one should be fired for having a fetlife profile outside of work. Nudes getting leaked shouldn’t be career-ending. Denying and hiding (consensual) sexual interests doesn’t make anyone more professional, it just makes everyone more repressed. And sterilizing ourselves to be better work drones isn’t productive, it’s just creepy. I’d rather my surgeon get absolutely railed on camera and come to work in a good mood, frankly.

waxwing-ed:

serial-unaliver-deactivated2024:

fascinated by this reply

boyholes:

mlarayoukai:

“ingredients you can pronounce” “all natural” “organic” “no chemicals”

i think im in love with you

monkeyislandtwo:

monkeyislandtwo:

we oc based artists stick together

its us and our 7 note drawings against the fucking world

meatfag:

I just saw a DNI for “evil intentions”. nobody puts up a warding talisman anymore just a fucking DNI

dysphoria-things:

dysphoria-things:

dysphoria-things:

dysphoria-things:

a lot of the people you guys are calling narcissists could easily be replaced with the word “asshole”

listen to me closely there is a man out there who wrote a book on what makes someone an asshole and. my god. the word asshole is RIGHT THERE and communicates almost exactly what you’re trying to communicate

the asshole:

1. allows himself to enjoy special advantages and does so systematically;
2. does this out of an entrenched sense of entitlement;
3. and is immunized by his sense of entitlement against the complaints of other people.

for the love of god, reblog the part that talks about what makes someone an asshole

witchyfaekin:

mswyrr:

favedump:

Mr. Rogers had an intentional manner of speaking to children, which his writers called “Freddish”. There were nine steps for translating into Freddish: 

1. “State the idea you wish to express as clearly as possible, and in terms preschoolers can understand.” Example: It is dangerous to play in the street. ​​​​​​
2. “Rephrase in a positive manner,” as in It is good to play where it is safe.
3. “Rephrase the idea, bearing in mind that preschoolers cannot yet make subtle distinctions and need to be redirected to authorities they trust.” As in, “Ask your parents where it is safe to play.”
4. “Rephrase your idea to eliminate all elements that could be considered prescriptive, directive, or instructive.” In the example, that’d mean getting rid of “ask”: Your parents will tell you where it is safe to play.
5. “Rephrase any element that suggests certainty.” That’d be “will”: Your parents can tell you where it is safe to play.
6. “Rephrase your idea to eliminate any element that may not apply to all children.” Not all children know their parents, so: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play.
7. “Add a simple motivational idea that gives preschoolers a reason to follow your advice.” Perhaps: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is good to listen to them.
8. “Rephrase your new statement, repeating the first step.” “Good” represents a value judgment, so: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them.
9. “Rephrase your idea a final time, relating it to some phase of development a preschooler can understand.” Maybe: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them, and listening is an important part of growing.

Mr. Rogers Had a Simple Set of Rules for Talking to Children - The Atlantic

Rogers brought this level of care and attention not just to granular details and phrasings, but the bigger messages his show would send. Hedda Sharapan, one of the staff members at Fred Rogers’s production company, Family Communications, Inc., recalls Rogers once halted taping of a show when a cast member told the puppet Henrietta Pussycat not to cry; he interrupted shooting to make it clear that his show would never suggest to children that they not cry.

In working on the show, Rogers interacted extensively with academic researchers. Daniel R. Anderson, a psychologist formerly at the University of Massachusetts who worked as an advisor for the show, remembered a speaking trip to Germany at which some members of an academic audience raised questions about Rogers’s direct approach on television. They were concerned that it could lead to false expectations from children of personal support from a televised figure. Anderson was impressed with the depth of Rogers’s reaction, and with the fact that he went back to production carefully screening scripts for any hint of language that could confuse children in that way.

In fact, Freddish and Rogers’s philosophy of child development is actually derived from some of the leading 20th-century scholars of the subject. In the 1950s, Rogers, already well known for a previous children’s TV program, was pursuing a graduate degree at The Pittsburgh Theological Seminary when a teacher there recommended he also study under the child-development expert Margaret McFarland at the University of Pittsburgh. There he was exposed to the theories of legendary faculty, including McFarland, Benjamin Spock, Erik Erikson, and T. Berry Brazelton. Rogers learned the highest standards in this emerging academic field, and he applied them to his program for almost half a century.

This is one of the reasons Rogers was so particular about the writing on his show. “I spent hours talking with Fred and taking notes,” says Greenwald, “then hours talking with Margaret McFarland before I went off and wrote the scripts. Then Fred made them better.” As simple as Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood looked and sounded, every detail in it was the product of a tremendously careful, academically-informed process.

That idea is REALLY worth learning to talk to the kiddos. Mr. Rogers still has a lot to teach us–especially for our own kids.

seven-oh-four:

honestly this screenshot just says everything

junglejim4322:

People disliking when people point out the similarities between the holocaust and the Palestinian genocide (despite the fact some of the methods of eradication/military methods/sentiments of ethnic cleansing and racial purity are not only identical but some are literally directly implemented from nazi ideology as well) is just proof they don’t see it as a real genocide

homunculus-argument:

“Me when I lie” is such a funny pseudo-diplomatic response to anything. Like just going “see I’m not saying that you would ever lie, but I tend to be a liar, and that would be the exact kind of thing that would come out of my mouth when I’m lying” sounds like the exact kind of quip that someone who was just described as ‘too clever for their own good’ would get stabbed over.

blustarpilot:

I decided this would look cool colored.

Sketch here

soapkid:

non furries are so annoying about the semantics of calling something a furry. “erm wouldnt that be like.. a feathery???” its an avian and its still a furry. ok yes you can call the slug a slimy thats funny. but these are all fursonas. unless theyre not. i hope this hurts you

gaymattsharp:

gaymattsharp:

phenomenon that kinda makes me want to kill myself

you guys are so fucking obnoxious

roach-works:

kaijuno:

My dad has bees. Today, I went to his house and he showed me all the honey he had gotten from the hives. He took the lid off a 5-gallon bucket full of honey and on top of the honey there were 3 little bees, struggling. They were covered in sticky honey and drowning. I asked him if we could help them and he said he was sure they wouldn’t survive. Casualties of honey collection I suppose.

I asked him again if we could at least get them out and kill them quickly, after all he was the one who taught me to put a suffering animal (or bug) out of its misery. He finally conceded and scooped the bees out of the bucket. He put them in an empty Chobani yogurt container and put the plastic container outside.

Because he had disrupted the hive with the earlier honey collection, there were bees flying all over outside.

We put the 3 little bees in the container on a bench and left them to their fate. My dad called me out a little while later to show me what was happening. These three little bees were surrounded by all their sisters (all of the bees are females) and they were cleaning the sticky nearly dead bees, helping them to get all of the honey off of their bodies. We came back a short time later and there was only one little bee left in the container. She was still being tended to by her sisters.

When it was time for me to leave, we checked one last time and all three of the bees had been cleaned off enough to fly away and the container was empty.

Those three little bees lived because they were surrounded by family and friends who would not give up on them, family and friends who refused to let them drown in their own stickiness and resolved to help until the last little bee could be set free.

Bee Sisters. Bee Peers. Bee Teammates.

We could all learn a thing or two from these bees.

Bee kind always.

also: the bees aren’t strong enough to pull the drowning ones out, and the humans aren’t delicate enough to clean them off afterwards. helping takes a lot of forms.

forlorngarden:

r0zeclawz:

what the fuck makes phone apps so cocky as to send me notifications telling me to use it. my grocery list app straight up went “you havent made a list in a while! 🙂” are you out of your fucking mind. you are a program. why are you speaking to me like youre my equal. i could replace you with a pen and the back of a receipt. idiot. i kill you now

welsh-meatball:

that-house:

manrippedapartbydogs:

ALT

this is the plot of Dune

feel like people should see the death grip of the full image

calware:

almanna-windflower:

calware:

things that instantly kill the vibe whenever someone just mentions them:

• harry potter
• nfts

i was so scared to click this, i thought someone had made a harry potter nft

ALT

roolsilver:

canethatssecretlyasword-deactiv:

i actually kinda like it when a character getting better includes them becoming weirder and less polite and more confusing and strange. no more “domestication” i wanna see the weird guy be weird!!!

When I say ‘domesticated’ I mean like an extremely intelligent bird is domesticated. They’re rifling through the fridge at 2pm in a dirty bathrobe in a home they do not live in. They’re sock-sliding past the dinner table and stealing chicken nuggets. They’re teaching the children new ways to dig holes, blow things up, and break into buildings.

triplspacee:

Time to add Transcendental Cha Cha Cha to the list of songs that are actually about some other (nonexistent) song that the audience isn’t listening to

red-velvet-0w0:

“Slide to the left:

Witness perfection

Slide to the right:

Nothing means anything”

why is this line from a tom cardy just the story of my life

anigozanthos:

TOM CARDY WORKS FAST BUT TUMBLR GAYS WORK FASTER

bambiraptorx:

Hit the Dance Floor, Motherfucker - bambiraptorx - Transcendental Cha Cha Cha - Tom Cardy (Song) [Archive of Our Own]

Alrighty here we go Transcendental Cha Cha Cha fic yeehaw

I wanted to explore more about the DJ so here’s about 1.1k words of weirdness lol

vortoxium:

Transcendental Cha Cha Cha - The DJ

I like both the versions with a black outline and without one, so have both.

i-make-images-moldy:

theribthatgrewback:

littleguysdaily:

terrania:

littleguysdaily:

avocadosfromfigaro:

mxyzptplk:

littleguysdaily:

alchemyandmagic:

littleguysdaily:

avocadosfromfigaro:

littleguysdaily:

blueburied:

littleguysdaily:

paintbrushofthetoontown:

thebelovedlion:

littleguysdaily:

wyrmoftheweb:

littleguysdaily:

picture-scrungler:

littleguysdaily:

clownboybebop:

littleguysdaily:

littleguysdaily:

f3v3r-dr3am:

littleguysdaily:

please.

when this image is completely unrecognizable i will get this on a t-shirt

@i-make-images-moldy

tumblr reinvents “expand dong”

elhopper1sm:

Unpopular opinion but the reason being a teenager sucks is less to do with hormones and social cliques and more to do with the fact adults fucking hate teenagers. The fact that adults expect teenagers to be able to take on adult responsibilities yet don’t deserve rights of an adult. They don’t see teenagers as human beings and they aren’t prepared to see kids with their own formed identities and humanity. Teenagers are so sexualized and seen as needing to take on more and more adult responsibilities. Yet when they want rights and humanity they are denied. The years your brain spends wanting nothing more than to form an identity are being taken away from you. Teenagers are essentially being kicked out of social spaces unless they have an extra 40 dollars lying around anytime they want to go out. Teenagers being kicked out of the mall just for existing or groomed into the school to prison pipeline. And now creating legislation to keep them off the Internet. Our society hates teenagers. And does everything we can to hurt them. The fact that anyone makes it out of their teenage years without trauma is a fucking miracle frankly.

chromegnomes:

on hold with the pest control company for work, and their hold message seriously just hit me with

“did you know there are a million ants for every human on earth? someone will be with you shortly”