I disagree that it’s an issue. I believe vast majority of people understand what a tax is, even if they feel taxes are shitty and respond with blame-y frustration. All words will be misunderstood by some people. Sometimes more and sometimes fewer. If we kept changing the name of things because a vocal minority of people can’t read a dictionary, then we will end up with a handful of generic words that don’t actually mean anything. I believe a better solution is to envest in education more broadly.

What do you think he’s doing on his tour?

So you would have taken the offer to leave the country for safety and handed the country over Putin, got it.

As a Canadian who generally fits this category, i am fairly privileged, have all my basic needs met and some security for the future under status quo conditions. I have my struggles, but they have not so much to with marginalization or oppression. But it depends on who you are. Indigenous women are still going missing, racists are still gonna racist, billionaires are still exploiting people struggling with food and housing security, etc. same goes for the USA. For millions of Americans who are upper-middle/upper class, heteronormative, and white, life is continuing on just fine, feeling safe and experiencing a government that functions as well as it ever has from their perspective. They’re too busy living their lives to get caught up in the “noise of angry squabbling of childish politicians”. Maybe expenses have gone up, but they can still sustain all their expectations out of life. He’ll you can imagine there are a not insignificant proportion of the Russian population are like this.

Wheels.

Current best practice AFAIK is exactly this. Gender care includes psychiatric/mental health, and occupational (ish) therapy that leads up to surgery after a lot of care. Gender dysphoria, like many things has an internal and external layer where society sets expectations and acts on us based on our gender expression in ways that can be quite brutal. Some folks may end up enby or smth or find something acceptable without surgery, which has its downsides. However none of this should preclude surgery as an option, as evidence has shown it is a highly effective treatment in our current context.

This is the biomedical view that focuses on dysfunction and suffering of the individual and addressing that dysfunction. There is a more philosophical/existential view worth understanding to balance the biomedical view. It is one that acknowledges that we are who we are and we develop the way we develop. If we are to flourish as humans and as a society, it must be through compassion for each others’ experiences as human subjects struggling to figure ourselves and each other out. Imposing one’s worldview on others by force is to treat humans as objects through manipulation. That’s mistaken and harmful. Compassion doesn’t mean you don’t stand up to bullies or you don’t resist injustice or you don’t fight back in self defense. It means you’re always seeking to humanize rather than dominate. This can mean supporting trans folks in accessing care or it can mean helping them to consider all their options.

They’re for storing the molecular correlates of trauma, obviously :3

Exactly, if we let more people die during the pandemic, workers would have more jobs to choose from and less family to take care of. /SARCASM

How was DEI not politicized from the very beginning? It was literally born out of the civil rights movement.

There are no lies. All perception involves interpretation.

Yes, we are in agreement on the outlook. As they’ve been saying in Ukraine, “The situation is grim”. My point was more about continuing to fight on all fronts, including the political/legislative fronts.

There are people in Congress who want that and are exactly working towards that. It isn’t lost yet, and they are not giving it up without a fight.

I don’t want to shake the ruling class, I want to take away their power to exploit people. I want insurance companies reigned in. Getting Obamacare passed did more than what a thousand vigilantes could, and that was after the Republicans and lobbyists gutted it.

If people really want to stick it to the man (conservatives and liberals alike), then they can vote in representatives and Senators who will actually legislate for the people, rather than ones who will enrich themselves off their backs.

You can revolt, you can eat the rich, it feels great. But what matters is how the system gets changed or doesn’t change. Plenty of revolutions have replaced the system was something worse, with these heros who took down the ruling class in their place. Keep a close eye on Syria, here’s hoping for the best.

He’s not dead.

Who said AI was gonna put people out of jobs? Look here, a whole new industry of gig work where people can market themselves as “best buyers”. Is your Kroger algorithm fucking you over with horrible prices? Not to worry, with a low low subscription fee, you’ll have access to our best buyers whose meticulously curated profiles will buy your items for you with guaranteed lowest price every time. They’ll even deliver it to your door for a small fee, or upgrade to our premium plus preferred plan for unlimited free deliveries. We also offer a comprehensive algorithm consulting service to help you reshape your algorithm for optimum purchasing power. Be the best buyer your can be ;) /SARCASM

On comment threads, every day.

1. Do I want to put this out into the world?
2. Do I need this in my life right now/is it worth the time?

This reflective exercise has saved me many excessive fixations. And yes, sometimes I do need to make that snarky overly-researched comment that nobody will see.