I’m increasingly of the belief that we never had a middle class, just a fiction of one

History is always being revised. This isn’t a bad thing, but rather inherent to the process of history. History isn’t about assembling facts together; it’s about the continual process of interpretation and reinterpretation. That means there’s no such thing as settled history, because there’s always more insight we can gain by looking backwards, even if we haven’t unearthed new evidence from a particular period.

Even if you had some undeniable facts about your life, those start to get wibbly wobbly the instant you try to communicate them to someone, because words are imprecise.

Maybe they’re just sick of staring at screens, and the Chromebook screen was the thing they hated the most because of the activities associated with it. Plus if you’re using it for most school work, a kid would be likely to be staring at that longer than their phone or other devices at home.

People like this tend to this of the women in their life (wives, daughters etc.) as objects they own. When an object is broken and cannot be fixed, you throw it away — especially if you have spares.

It’s only speculation, but it fits the pattern. I have had the misfortune of knowing multiple disgusting assholes like this guy

The problem exists there in the space, independent of whether you personally experience it as a problem. The system was designed a certain way, and it’s not functioning as intended. Most cyclists are probably fine to cycle around it, but there’s still a problem there, and it would be wise to address it.

It’s not just about how much space there is. Cycle lanes are important because having a clear delineation of what spaces are intended for what road users is a key part of how cycle lanes improve safety and efficiency in cities. As it stands, the cycle lane is not functioning as it should.

Potholes in roads aren’t a huge deal for most drivers — it’s usually possible to navigate around them without much effort, and even if you do hit them, it usually doesn’t cause any damage. We still strive to fill in potholes though, because we acknowledge that a road isn’t meant to have them, and that keeping roads in good repair is a crucial part of making the system work.

It doesn’t help that Labour seem determined to fuck things up. They have such a big majority that they could do so much to actually speak to the problems that regular people are experiencing that drives people to vote Reform.

I live in a pretty shitty area that has a high proportion of Reform voters. Our MP is Labour, but on the track we’re on, we might have a Reform MP next time. Some of the Reform voters round here are racist arseholes, but most of them just feel so demoralised and unrepresented by the mainstream political parties that they are desperate for something — anything different.

Some of them actively acknowledge that if Reform won enough seats that Farage became MP, that they would almost certainly fuck up the country significantly, but they don’t care anymore. They’re so desperate for change that the idea of burning the established order down feels appealing, because even if things will get very shit, very fast, that feels like the only path where there’s the possibility of hope for something good springing from the ashes.

It’s simultaneously an irrational and entirely reasonable thing to crave. I can’t say I don’t sympathise.

Fucking twat.

This is fucking stochastic terrorism

TL;DR:

• Fight if you can

• Flee if you must

• But always resist

Connect with networks in your community. We need to rely on each others’ support to get through this, no matter how the situation develops

The person who replied to you said “Fight”, and they’re not wrong, but I want to emphasise that there are people whose personal circumstances mean that they feel they need to flee, and that is okay. You should not feel guilty if this is something you genuinely need to do.

If you need to flee, do so by relying on your community. Don’t do things along. Look for ways that you can resist while still keeping yourself safe, and use your community connections to support other people who need to flee. There are some people who are not as able to fight, but there are still ways they can contribute.

To give an example of the kind of thing I mean (albeit in a far less explosive context, because I’m not in the US), I am physically disabled and have a bunch of other factors that mean I am not safely able to attend most protests, even as a legal observer. However, there have been a few times where I have been on standby, parked near the police station overnight, waiting for people to be released. This is because UK police tend to make a lot of arrests at protests and either not charge you, or charge you at a later point. They tend to let people out in the middle of the night, and they often do not have resources to travel home, or easy ways to contact people for help. When people in my network find out which station arrested protesters have been taken to, we can coordinate to ensure that there’s definitely going to be someone there when they are let out.

Like I say, that’s an example from a very different political climate. Things on the ground where you are is changing so fast that I can’t possibly know what kind of support roles are both relatively safe, and useful right now. This is why it is crucial to connect with your communities. Figuring out what works is a work-in-progress, but I am confident that there are ways you can help contribute to the resistance efforts while also relying on your community to help you or your loved ones flee if you need to.

Things are awful, and it sucks. Nothing is safe right now, even fleeing. But we have a duty to do whatever we can to reduce the harm done to the people in our communities. At times like this, all we have is each other, so let’s look after each other.

It’s a very effective strategy, because speaking as a queer woman, I would see the person on the right and think “personal experience tells me this person might belong to the alphabet mafia, so perhaps I could buy her a drink”

Yeah, but I often like to headcanon them as real, because it’s more fun that way. It’s low stakes, not too implausible, and it makes me happy to imagine, so I like choosing to take it at face value.

I hadn’t noticed that, but you’re right. Like, you can tell that he’s not even bracing himself in anticipation as you sometimes see dogs doing when they’re trying their best to ignore the food — he makes it look effortless. What a good boy

It’s a city on the US

My dude, do you know what statistics is? The paper doesn’t say anything of that sort. Measuring the proportion of people who hold a particular belief is nothing like what you describe

Exactly, thank you for adding this.

The fact that AI is making reverse centaurs out of us really sticks out to me whenever I watch Star Trek. The way they interact with the computer in Trek makes me wistful for what AI could be, if it were being developed in a more human centred way.

You are committing a logical fallacy called “affirming the consequent”.

Props to you for admitting you spoke prematurely

There’s so many hard hitting quotes in this game. The one that hit me the hardest was actually the thought cabinet thought you get for trying to open the unopenable door.

Edit:

Found it.

“There is no way to open the supply depot door. Accept it. You cannot open all the doors. You have to integrate this into your character. Some doors will forever remain closed. Even if every single other door will open at one time or another, maybe to a key, or maybe to some sort of tool meant for opening doors… But this one will never accede to such commands. A realization crucial to personal growth. Crucial.”

I felt so betrayed by this. I had spent a point to unlock this thought. I waited with excitement for its completion, which would surely allow me to unlock the door. But instead, I felt more called out than I have ever felt in my life.

This is a great article that lays out the problems with SRY testing in a clear way. I’ve bookmarked it, as I suspect I’ll find it useful to send to someone at some point

None of us are free until all of us are free. I have faith that this fight is winnable because I used to be the kind of cis person who wanted to consider herself a trans ally, but who didn’t really know what that meant. In hindsight, I was too concerned with avoiding saying or doing the wrong thing, feeling like I was walking on eggshells around the topic of transness I don’t mean in a virtue signalling kind of way, but because I didn’t want to cause any harm, whether to an individual, or to trans activism in general — it wasn’t my cause, so I believed that the best thing to do was to be respectful and stay back. There are many cis people who aren’t necessarily disgusted, but confused and anxious about how to react (people on the left do this kind of transphobia a lot, in my opinion).

It took a partner coming out as trans to kick me out of that. I learned a lot about trans reality very fast, including how foolish my previous approach had been. It was admirable, in a way, to be so keen to help but not knowing how. It was also cowardly and ignorant. Ultimately though, I’m glad for this experience because it has shown me not just that it’s possible to change, but also that this change was super beneficial to me too. Being in community with trans people has made me more comfortable and happy in my own assigned gender — turns out that gender euphoria isn’t just relief from gender dysphoria, and that cis people can experience gender euphoria too. That journey has also helped me to unpick a bunch of my internalised misogyny — solidarity is one hell of a drug.

Trans people are a much smaller demographic, it’s true. However, when I reflect on how it felt to change my understanding on this topic, and how impactful it was on me, it makes me feel like progress is surely inevitable, because of how much this felt like puzzle pieces sliding together as a definite step to discovering Truth has been found. This is absolutely my fight, and whilst it’s not easy to cause someone to have the self growth journey that I did, the prospect of exponential growth increasing our fighting numbers gives me faith. Iirc, a similar thing happened with gay rights — as more people came out, then more people became aware that they had a gay neighbour, or colleague, or sister, or uncle. Whilst unfortunately there were some who became estranged from their loved ones due to this, there were others whose families became advocates for gay rights. The town I used to live, at one timr believed itself to have no gay people living there. Then one guy came out. Then a few years later, we’re up to 5. Then a few years later, it’s at 50.

The small number of trans people will mean it will take longer to get this fire to roaring temperature, but I actually do feel confident that we’ll get there. Perhaps it’s because I think we will make progress on trans rights because that’s literally what’s necessary for the world — climate change and patriarchy and classism and so many other things latch together so intricately that I don’t think we can meaningfully extricate any one piece enough, so we will have to reckon with the fact that none of us are free unless all of us are free.

I think some of the people who are freaking out are scared because it feels like we’re regressing. Things definitely are better now than they were, but what if we continue on this trajectory and things get back to being that bad? I am too young to have been alive in the era you’re describing, but what gets to me is that I can remember that there was a feeling of progress when I was a teenager. Any given step forward didn’t solve homophobia by itself, but it didn’t need to when there were many small steps being made. Now it feels like we’re taking strides back.