You know how we call things "pseudoscience"... the media analysis that's being done on twitter and tumblr should be pseudohumanities
Rocket scientists who leave the rocket industry keep thinking everything is a rocket and it's kind of adorable
"We can honeycomb this to reduce the weight" sweetie no that's going to be twice as expensive to manufacture and we are not launching it anywhere.
"If we use titanium instead of steel we'll save a bunch of weight" baby you need to stop worrying so much about your weight! And maybe worry more about what happens to titanium when you expose it to deuterium plasma.
One of the things I love about watching people make art on the internet is clocking the way they use the tools they know. The way a nail artist makes miniatures is completely different than the way a polymer clay artist does the same thing. How a whittler and a painter approach printmaking.
Consider the ways in which you are a rocket engineer.
*studied process optimization in computer science*
*looks at recipes I have rewritten to simplify and reduce steps*
I was NOT expecting to be called out like this.
Yes yes yes this scene thank you for the tag, heehehehe
It’s funny because this scene must be based on the memoir Special Agent by Candis DeLong. In it she describes being out looking at clothes at a department store on lunch break with another female agent and overhearing a conversation between a man and a woman in which he says he’s an FBI agent. They peer around some clothes racks thinking that they’re going to see one of their fellow agents trying to get a date, and when they don’t recognize the guy they go over and pretend to be interested in the big strong FBI agent themselves and ask to see his badge. The guy actually pulled out a fake badge, whereupon they said “Huh, that doesn’t look anything like ours…”, produced their own badges and arrested him for impersonating an FBI agent. (I remember this bit from a 25 year old book because I actually stole it myself for a fic)
Exquisite. Glorious. 10/10 thank you for sharing.
"But AI can't do your job. It can help you do your job, but that doesn't mean it's going to save anyone money. Take radiology: there's some evidence that AIs can sometimes identify solid-mass tumors that some radiologists miss, and look, I've got cancer. Thankfully, it's very treatable, but I've got an interest in radiology being as reliable and accurate as possible.
If my Kaiser hospital bought some AI radiology tools and told its radiologists: "Hey folks, here's the deal. Today, you're processing about 100 x-rays per day. From now on, we're going to get an instantaneous second opinion from the AI, and if the AI thinks you've missed a tumor, we want you to go back and have another look, even if that means you're only processing 98 x-rays per day. That's fine, we just care about finding all those tumors."
If that's what they said, I'd be delighted. But no one is investing hundreds of billions in AI companies because they think AI will make radiology more expensive, not even if that also makes radiology more accurate. The market's bet on AI is that an AI salesman will visit the CEO of Kaiser and make this pitch: "Look, you fire 9/10s of your radiologists, saving $20m/year, you give us $10m/year, and you net $10m/year, and the remaining radiologists' job will be to oversee the diagnoses the AI makes at superhuman speed, and somehow remain vigilant as they do so, despite the fact that the AI is usually right, except when it's catastrophically wrong.
"And if the AI misses a tumor, this will be the human radiologist's fault, because they are the 'human in the loop.' It's their signature on the diagnosis."
This is a reverse centaur, and it's a specific kind of reverse-centaur: it's what Dan Davies calls an "accountability sink." The radiologist's job isn't really to oversee the AI's work, it's to take the blame for the AI's mistakes.
This is another key to understanding – and thus deflating – the AI bubble. The AI can't do your job, but an AI salesman can convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can't do your job. This is key because it helps us build the kinds of coalitions that will be successful in the fight against the AI bubble."
- Cory Doctorow, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI
"I don't want to read this" is totally valid.
"This is disgusting to me" is totally valid.
"I don't want to read this because it is disgusting to me" is totally valid.
"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.
"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.
Bro, blocking someone and then using their tag like this is, all offence, weak as fuck. Like all you had to say was, na bro I don't promote pedo protags on this here blog, because I wholly agree with the premise of your argument given contexts (i.e., writing abusive relationships to show the evils, great; writing abusive relationships to show the romance, yikes).
This response is so, so comically shitty within the context of that tag, oh my god.
"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.
"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.
"Censorship of some topics in fiction and art is good and I would be happy if it were to be enacted in a way I approved of"
and
"some things should be banned from ever being written or read about in fiction"
are both authoritarian viewpoints to hold and express, even if you don't have the power to enact them.
If you hold these viewpoints you are holding authoritarian viewpoints.
DUDE IT’S PEDO FICS EVERYBODY THINKS THEY’RE NASTY
Let me explain this to you in simple terms.
Something being nasty is not a good reason to ban fiction about it.
If we accept that "something being nasty is a good reason to bad fiction about it" then we give a foot in the door for all the people who truly, genuinely believe that queer people are nasty to ban all queer literature.
This is not about defending bad people this is about defending the freedom of good people from tyranny, you moron.
I think if you take it to its logical extreme. Say, banning people from writing stories of sexual abuse. That could then be said "well ANY talk about sexual abuse is bad."
And from that, you could ban books that talk about it irl. Or books like how to recover after being abuse. If its not something to be discussed AT ALL.
The fact that I’ve seen this post in some form on my dash like 100x and each time there’s new idiots who do not get that you can’t have *some* censorship.
Either you’re for it or you aren’t.
The moment you agree that something should never, ever exist in fiction is the moment that anything can be banned.
Remember a while back how Tumblr banned a bunch of tags, including many popular innocuous ones that even people who are for censorship used and were upset about?
When censorship happens, stuff YOU like can and will be banned. That’s how it works.
Remember how a bunch of people had their accounts terminated here only last year for writing about their own sexual abuse?
When you ban “pedo” topics, say, any talk of child sexual abuse in any form, that means people can no longer write about their own experiences. It means people cannot educate others so they can learn how to protect themselves or get help from these situations.
Censorship is authoritarian. Full stop.
Even if “everyone” agrees something is “gross” and “shouldn’t exist,” that does not fucking matter.
Do you know who generally believes queer people are gross and shouldn’t exist??
The same people who are banning books left and right solely because they have queer characters or relationships.
The same people who attack and kill queer folk for simply exisiting.
This is not just some fandom matter or a case of being chronically online.
Protecting freedom of expression is essential, and if you do not get that, I don’t know what to say to you.
And the people who keep bringing up child sex abuse as a reason for censorship are doing it very specifically because everyone feels like then they HAVE to agree with the person in favor of censorship.
It’s not that there isn’t widespread societal agreement on this. It’s that they want you backed into a rhetorical corner where you feel compelled to agree with them.
Also, like, we KNOW how this shit shakes out in fandom because it's happened before.
In 2007, Livejournal capitulated to the "pedophilia and sex crimes!" cries of (hate group) Warriors 4 Innocence, and you know what communities got shut down? Slashfic communities. Sexual assault survivor support communities. Authors who'd written non-smut m/m fic even got caught up in it. It was DEVASTATING to fandom spaces. I think pretty much everyone knew at least one person whose account was literally DELETED, or were a member of a community that was wiped off the map because they were considerate enough to include topics like "sexual assault" or "BDSM" in the profiles under the badly-named category of "interests" to indicate that posts on said blogs or communities may include discussion of things like that. Even if it was for a SUPPORT group. And it was because a group of religious bigots came to LJ and said essentially "EVERYONE thinks it's gross and that it's promoting CSA, we should ban it."
Like, strikethrough and boldthrough were a large part of what propelled AO3 out of a more unfocused conversation on one person's blog about hosting a site INTENDED for fandom content, into being an actual archive and nonprofit. And it's a large part of why you won't find AO3 banning topics that you find "gross".
Censorship is authoritarian and it will ALWAYS have more collateral damage than you can imagine.
Going to add that fiction which had sexual abuse and communities which played around with it as a writing topic are the very things that protected me from irl sexual abuse when I was a teenager.
I was in a dicey situation, and realized that while my situation did not match up to any of the superficial or textbook cases mentioned in passing (if at all) through school, it matched up a LOT to what I'd learned about irl sexual abuse through works of fiction and the rhetoric of my communities. I got out of that situation and dodged what was, in retrospect, one hell of a nasty bullet.
If it hadn't been for that "nasty" fiction and those "nasty" communities, I would very likely have been abused, and subject to further violence spiraling out from that abuse.
you can’t have *some* censorship.
Yup! It really is, in fact, pretty much that simple:
"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.
Storytime!
I had a friend. We were 12. We had just discovered fanfiction and were obsessed. We read anything and everything we could get our hands on. One of the stories we read was a "pedo fic." It exposed us to scenarios and language that hadn't ever been touched on in Sex Ed at school or with our parents. To be frank, it "corrupted our young minds with topics we shouldn't have to deal with." It also gave my friend words to finally describe why her neighbor creeped her out so much. "He's creepy and weird" gets a 12 year old scolded and lectured on being nicer. "He's a sexual predator" gets adults asking questions and involving the cops. Her neighbor "moved away."
Censorship is pro-pedo and anti-child-safety. There is no communicating what's wrong if there are no words to describe what's happening. Bad things will happen whether you have the words to ask for help or not. Censorship takes those words away.
"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.
“Bad things will happen whether you have the words to ask for help or not. Censorship takes those words away.”
you know what's a random thing about America's bullshit healthcare system that I rarely see talked about? the fact that healthcare professionals tend to have higher premiums for health insurance
most people get healthcare through their employer, right? well. insurance companies will take the exact same plan and charge a grocery store a $50 premium per worker and a hospital a $200 premium per worker. why? because healthcare professionals understand health insurance better. there is a higher likelihood that a healthcare professional will dispute a denied authorization, unpaid or incorrectly processed claim, et cetera, than the average person.
straight from the mouth of the insurance broker that provided the health insurance for the medical billing company I worked at. he said companies like ours got charged the highest premiums for the same plans because the insurance company knew that we understood health insurance and they wouldn't be able to get away with the same amount of bullshit they normally do.
I really, really felt that the *checks notes* fifth time I had to call my health insurance to have them reprocess a single claim that they had processed incorrectly
Cosmic alignment…
Fuck all of the good luck posts out there. Reblog this to immaculate your vibes