6raindog
Random thoughts I have
71 posts
Latest Posts by 6raindog
a list of 100+ buildings to put in your fantasy town
academy
adventurer's guild
alchemist
apiary
apothecary
aquarium
armory
art gallery
bakery
bank
barber
barracks
bathhouse
blacksmith
boathouse
book store
bookbinder
botanical garden
brothel
butcher
carpenter
cartographer
casino
castle
cobbler
coffee shop
council chamber
court house
crypt for the noble family
dentist
distillery
docks
dovecot
dyer
embassy
farmer's market
fighting pit
fishmonger
fortune teller
gallows
gatehouse
general store
graveyard
greenhouses
guard post
guildhall
gymnasium
haberdashery
haunted house
hedge maze
herbalist
hospice
hospital
house for sale
inn
jail
jeweller
kindergarten
leatherworker
library
locksmith
mail courier
manor house
market
mayor's house
monastery
morgue
museum
music shop
observatory
orchard
orphanage
outhouse
paper maker
pawnshop
pet shop
potion shop
potter
printmaker
quest board
residence
restricted zone
sawmill
school
scribe
sewer entrance
sheriff's office
shrine
silversmith
spa
speakeasy
spice merchant
sports stadium
stables
street market
tailor
tannery
tavern
tax collector
tea house
temple
textile shop
theatre
thieves guild
thrift store
tinker's workshop
town crier post
town square
townhall
toy store
trinket shop
warehouse
watchtower
water mill
weaver
well
windmill
wishing well
wizard tower
Being able to read journal articles critically is also such an important skill. I’ve been reading journal articles since late high school, but it’s only been in grad school that I’ve learned how to approach them critically. Fortunately there are a few questions you can ask about any study that will help you decide how much you trust the results even if you know nothing of the field.
What journal was the article published in? Some journals are far more reputable than others. Usually a quick Google search can inform you of if a journal is considered reputable.
Do the authors list any conflicts of interest? Conflicts of interest aren’t an immediate red flag, but if the author has a strong incentive to only publish certain results then I’ll definitely be taking a second or third look at the study.
Who funded the study? If Coca Cola funded a study that says drinking one soda a day is beneficial to your energy levels, I’m not trusting that implicitly.
Is it peer reviewed? Peer review can fail, but this is the quickest test for if a study is good or not.
What are the limitations of the study? This plays into the assumptions the author made. Were the experiments only done on white men (often the first standard in medical research though it’s getting better)?
Similarly do the authors list their limitations? The best articles will have a short section on limitations or a paragraph in the discussion about limitations. I am always slightly wary when no limitations are listed.
What is the sample size in the study? This number will usually be found in methods. The bigger the number, the better. However, there are a lot of standards for what the minimum sample size should be. In small animal research, you’re usually looking at a few dozen mice or rats. In larger animal research, you may be looking at less than ten animals (pigs, horses, cows). In human trials (also known as clinical research), it tends to be dependent on what the study is on. Knee replacements probably 15 people or so. Spinal cord trauma would be more like 5 people. (Social science will also have different minimum sample sizes but I’m not familiar enough to give estimates. In general subjective surveys require a lot of people. More objective testing done by researchers will have less people involved)
How many citations does the study have? This one can be a little more hit or miss. An article published a year or two ago may be great and have no citations. While an article published fifty years ago may have a hundred citations but have incorrect information (in this case it’s usually that methods have improved and new information was discovered instead of poor research quality). Niche topics may also be hardly cited despite being good articles.
There are other questions you can ask like “Can I follow the methods?” “Does the interpretation of their results logically follow from their results?”Etc. but those tend to be harder the less familiar you are with a field. And if you’re reading about a study in a news article like CNN, Apple News, etc. there are different tricks to determining how much you trust them (I tend to look for hyperbole and rhetorical devices. One time I found a news article saying physicists had figured out faster than light travel. They were referencing a theoretical mathematics paper that stated using several assumptions hyperluminal travel is mathematically possible)
What I learn from Science & Technology Studies is that you shouldn't blindly trust science because there's a fair amount of fuckery (mostly unintentional but sometimes not) going on in the background, but you also shouldn't *not* trust science in the way that most people who don't trust science don't trust science.
Anyways, hope that helps!
I'm just going to leave this here, because this woman said what I've been trying to articulate for ages much more effectively and succinctly than I've been able to
I’m working through Democracy Awakening by Heather Cox Richardson and I am crying. The absolute injustice that has occurred in America in the last several decades. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t realize the cheating in government had been going on for as long as it has. The lack of fairness in government is alarming. I was definitely the kid who cried when things weren’t fair (I understand equity vs equality, and sorta did when I was a kid). I am appalled and angry that some politicians have spend years changing the rules on everyone and cheating.
But anyway, it’s such an amazing book and I wish it could be school curriculum but it won’t ever be until Republicans aren’t able to mess with school curriculum. It airs way too many of their dirty (not so) secrets.
Want to learn something new in 2022??
Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)
40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)
Excellent basic crochet video series
Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)
Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)
How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)
Another drawing character faces video
Literally my favorite art pose hack
Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??
Introduction to flying small aircrafts
French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding
Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)
Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)
Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)
Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:
Calculus 1 (full semester class)
Learn basic statistics (free textbook)
Introduction to college physics (free textbook)
Introduction to accounting (free textbook)
Learn a language:
Ancient Greek
Latin
Spanish
German
Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)
French
Russian (pretty good cyrillic guide!)
I think my profile picture says it all.
if you had to choose one pokemon to be your absolute favorite out of every pokemon which one would you choose. its okay to choose a "basic" one
Having to pay hundreds of dollars just for the honor of being denied is one of America’s biggest failures.
Ok so at this point I've had two people roll up to me in manual wheelchairs, well, one of them was somebody pushing somebody who was nonverbal at the time, but it still counts. They asked me why I had zip ties around my tires.
It's winter where I'm living and we have really bad snow. And the snow plow people are really bad at their jobs probably because there aren't snow plow people who clean sidewalks. As a solution I got to thinking about how I could increase the traction on my wheels. And the most redneck thing I could think of was taking a bunch of zip ties and tying them around my wheels. They last surprisingly long, and work surprisingly well. It's basically the same premise as chains for your tires during the winter.
I chose to space them out pretty evenly so there's about one for every spoke. You could probably do more or less depending on how many you want and how much traction you get but I wouldn't go more than three per spoke. I realize that it's a bit later in the winter, and I probably should have made a post about this sooner, but I came up with it about a week ago. So please share this, even if you're not disabled, because there are tons of people I know who are stuck in their houses because they can't get around in the snow. A pack of zip ties costs about $5, which compared to $200 knobby snow tires is a big save, and if you want to invest you could get colored zip ties.
Sorta close. That’s the Tenrou island arc, and you seem to be mixing up Gray’s and Natsu’s separate fights with the time mage. Natsu never beat Ultear though. (Ultear also wasn’t able to negate Natsu’s magic but she certainly kept him from being able to hit her). Gray is the one who beat her. Ultear was also initially able to negate Gray’s ice make magic by turning his ice into water. However Gray figured out Ultear couldn’t rewind or fast forward organic organisms so he used his blood to create bloody ice and was able to beat her.
There are several times in the series that Natsu does win by saying he’ll breath more fire. Most notably (in my opinion) when he uses dragon force for the first time. It’s fair to remember that Fairy Tail is 100% the power of friendship wins the day style story so some solutions don’t exactly make sense. I always found Gray vs. Ultear to be pretty neat and help explain magic better.
Guys I think I have a false memory and I need someone who's seen fairy tail to tell me if it's a hallucination or not.
I vaguely remember natsu had to fight some girl who had a magic ball that was constantly rewinding time or something and negating his fire breathing bullshit...
And I remember that the solution didn't make sense because it was basically just natsu saying I'll just breathe even more fire...or punch it even harder??????
And I remember at the time I thought it was really fucking stupid.
Because it was brute forcing a boring solution to an interesting battle dynamic, and a classic example of an author coming up with an idea so good that he wrote himself into a corner with it???
Did something like that happen in fairy tail or did I implant a false memory in my head???
Anyone else feel like life (especially in America) is like gambling in a rigged game. Like oh you have to pay $70 for each college application and even if you are a solid applicant at least 75% will reject you. Oh you want to apply to jobs. Well you need a cover letter that is specific for why you want to earn minimum wage at Starbucks and you better not put down that you need a job. We don’t want any one who isn’t committed to our corporate overlords. Oh you want to volunteer in a lab. Well not sure that you are the right fit for our lab right now. And don’t get me started on trying to get a response from potential PhD advisors that you email.
I’m just really tired.
Ed Sheeran and live (bad) country is not a combination I thought I’d hear in my life. And now I wish I hadn’t.
Source
Video of Tama
Follow Ultrafacts for more facts
This is going to be an unpleasant post but I need to talk to y’all about heat stroke in dogs. I am an ER vet and I am seeing firsthand the death toll that this heat wave is taking on our pets. In the past two weeks, for every single weekend shift I have worked, we have had at least one DOA with a body temperature over 107 degrees. One of them had simply been on a 20 minute walk at 5pm. All of them were brachycephalic (short faced breeds like pugs and french bulldogs). Their owners were in shock that this could happen so quickly, and their grief lingers with me.
If you have a dog, and especially if you have a brachycephalic dog, you need to familiarize yourself with the signs of heat stroke. Do not take your dogs out in the heat of the day, be aware of the pavement temperature, and always have fresh water available for them. When I am outdoors with my dog I am checking on him constantly. This heat wave is extremely serious; I need you to keep yourself and your pets safe.
⚠️ ROAD WORK AHEAD ⚠️
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________________ SPEEDING FINES DOUBLED WHEN WORKERS PRESENT —————————
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⚠️ ROAD WORK 500FT ⚠️
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🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧
🚚 🚚 🔩 웃 🧰 🕳️ 🪚웃 웃📋 웃 웃 🛠️ 🔨웃 🏗️ 🕳️ 웃 웃 🔧 🚚 🔩 🔩 🔩
🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧🚧
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⚠️ END ROAD WORK ⚠️
I recently graduated with a BS in physics. I was one of three women who graduated that year out of 20 students.
Christopher Nolan’s highly-anticipated movie “Oppenheimer,” set for release July 21, 2023, depicts J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in the development of the atomic bomb. But while the Manhattan Project wouldn’t have been possible without the work of many accomplished female scientists, the only women seen in the movie’s trailer are either hanging laundry, crying or cheering the men on.The only women featured in the official trailer for Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ are crying, hanging laundry or supporting the men.
As a physics professor who studies ways to support women in STEM – science, technology, engineering and math – fields and a film studies professor who worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood, we believe the trailer’s depiction of women reinforces stereotypes about who can succeed in science. It also represents a larger trend of women’s contributions in science going unrecognized in modern media.
Lise Meitner: A pioneering role model in physics
The Manhattan Project would not have been possible without the work of physicist Lise Meitner, who discovered nuclear fission. Meitner used Einstein’s E=MC² to calculate how much energy would be released by splitting uranium atoms, and it was that development that would prompt Einstein to sign a letter urging President Franklin Roosevelt to begin the United States’ atomic research program.
Einstein called Meitner the “Madame Curie of Germany” and was one of a pantheon of physicists, from Max Planck to Niels Bohr, who nominated Meitner for a Nobel Prize 48 times during her lifetime.
Meitner never won. Instead, the prize for fission went to Otto Hahn, her male lab partner of 30 years in Berlin. Hahn received the news of his nomination under house arrest in England, where he and other German scientists were being held to determine how far the Third Reich had advanced with its atomic program.
Of Jewish descent, Meitner had been forced to flee the Nazis in 1938 and refused to use this scientific discovery to develop a bomb. Rather, she spent the rest of her life working to promote nuclear disarmament and advocating for the responsible use of nuclear energy.
Meitner was not the only woman who made a significant contribution during this time. But the lack of physics role models like Meitner in popular media leads to real-life consequences. Meitner doesn’t appear as a character in the film, as she was not part of the Manhattan Project, but we hope the script alludes to her groundbreaking work.
A lack of representation
Only around 20% of the undergraduate majors and Ph.D. students in physics are women. The societal stereotypes and biases, expectation of brilliance, lack of role models and chilly culture of physics discourage many talented students from historically marginalized backgrounds, like women, from pursuing physics and related disciplines.
Societal stereotypes and biases influence students even before they enter the classroom. One common stereotype is the idea that genius and brilliance are important factors to succeed in physics. However, genius is often associated with boys, and girls from a young age tend to shy away from fields associated with innate brilliance.
Studies have found that by the age of 6, girls are less likely than boys to believe they are “really, really smart.” As these students get older, often the norms in science classes and curricula tend not to represent the interests and values of girls. All of these stereotypes and factors can influence women’s perception of their ability to do physics.
Research shows that at the end of a yearlong college physics course sequence, women with an “A” have the same physics self-efficacy as men with a “C”. A person’s physics self-efficacy is their belief about how good they are at solving physics problems – and one’s self-efficacy can shape their career trajectory.
Women drop out of college science and engineering majors with significantly higher grade-point averages than men who drop out. In some cases, women who drop out have the same GPA as men who complete those majors. Compared to men, women in physics courses feel significantly less recognized for their accomplishments. Recognition from others as a person who can excel in physics is the strongest predictor of a student’s physics identity, or whether they see themselves as someone who can excel in physics.
More frequent media recognition of female scientists, such as Meitner, could vicariously influence young women, who may see them as role models. This recognition alone can boost young women’s physics self-efficacy and identity.
When Meitner started her career at the beginning of the 20th century, male physicists made excuses about why women had no place in a lab – their long hair might catch fire on Bunsen burners, for instance. We like to believe we have made progress in the past century, but the underrepresentation of women in physics is still concerning.
Diversity as an asset to science
If diverse groups of scientists are involved in brainstorming challenging problems, not only can they devise better, future-oriented solutions, but those solutions will also benefit a wider range of people.
Individuals’ lived experiences affect their perspectives – for example, over two centuries ago, mathematician Ada Lovelace imagined applications far beyond what the original inventors of the computer intended. Similarly, women today are more likely to focus on applications of quantum computers that will benefit their communities. Additionally, physicists from Global South countries are more likely to develop improved stoves, solar cells, water purification systems or solar-powered lamps. The perspectives that diverse groups bring to science problems can lead to new innovations.
Our intention is not to disparage the “Oppenheimer” movie, but to point out that by not centering media attention on diverse voices – including those of women in physics like Meitner – filmmakers perpetuate the status quo and stereotypes about who belongs in physics. Additionally, young women continue to be deprived of exposure to role models who could inspire their academic and professional journeys'
I was babysitting for my mom’s cousin and there were supposed to be a couple more kids than hers. I was not told I’d be looking after about 9 kids (fortunately 2 of them were old enough to mostly look after themselves) while the adults were outside having free time. I had only ever babysat my two cousins who were enough of a handful so adding five kids to the mix was a lot for me.
Anyway, one of my cousins and her three friends come in to the playroom. They are upset and two girls are crying. I get the story that they were playing with a microphone and there was a little bit of a fight over who got it next. One of them accidentally hit another with it. The other girls are saying it was on purpose. Eventually I am able to get the girl who was hit to calm down and get everyone but the girl who accidentally hit her friend to go downstairs for a bit. The last girl is crying and telling me it was an accident. I immediately tell her I believe her.
And guys, she looked at me like no one had ever said that to her. There are plenty of details from that night I don’t remember but I will never forget her face. I felt like I was the first adult (pseudo adult? I was like 19) to tell her that I believed her.
So don’t automatically assume kids are lying or anything. Or that they are upset for some stupid reason. Even if it is a stupid reason to you, it isn’t to the kid. They have a lot less life experience to pull from and their brains are still growing.
I sat with a crying second grader today. (The age range is outside my wheelhouse but I was the most convenient adult.) He was crying, the other adults said, because his brother took a phone he was playing on. “Phone addicted,” everybody said. “If he would get up and play games with the other kids he wouldn’t be crying.”
He told me everyone lets his brother take things from him because his brother is younger, and doesn’t know better. He told me he doesn’t want to play because he’s tired, he has too many extracurriculars this summer and can’t get good sleep because “everyone in my camper is so loud when I’m trying to sleep.” He’s exhausted and only eight. His mom’s an acquaintance and told me she and the kid’s father are going through a separation — mom and four kids left the house to stay in a camper.
But people will seriously not listen to kids crying over seemingly minor things because on the surface it looks like a tantrum. If kids are given the space to articulate themselves they often will.
DRAG IS NO LONGER BANNED IN TENNESSEE ✨✨
Having petty grandparents is the best. Grandpa gives you $50 so grandma gives you $75. Honestly I wished they both lived in the same town so they could one up each other more often.
Is it better to report the pornbots as spam or sexual content? As far as I’ve seen they haven’t posted anything yet, but everyone knows they are pornbots.
It also happens to be mathematical satire. I don’t know many kids who when introduced to abstract math concepts (or even variables for the first time) aren’t just done™️.
in almost every other children's book where the main heroine is swept away to a land of whimsy she's shown having a lovely time; braving dangers occasionally, trying to find her way home, sure, but ultimately delighting in the magic around her. meanwhile alice spends her entire time in wonderland like
He had failed and now his bones would turn to ash. It wasn’t supposed to be a simple mission, but he figured it was more likely he’d get a sword in the gut or fried by some electricity than burned by the dragon he tried to save.
The Rafel Alliance was a stunning beacon of justice. If your definition of justice was black and white. Even the Mor Actin Spire had a more nuanced definition of justice and they were a dictatorship. Still, dragon fire for a drunken revelry was a bit much. He probably should have stayed low after the mission. Probably shouldn’t have gotten drunk out of excitement of not having a sword in the gut, but he did. One fistfight later, and he’s thrown in jail. A week after, death by dragon flames.
Obviously he’d failed the mission. He administered the antidote to the Alliance’s chemical control of the dragon, but they all knew it might not work. Which was why he stayed in town. He got drunk, because getting in and out of the central prison and dragon grounds was a feat worthy of a legendary thief.
Which he one hundred percent wasn’t. Now, he wasn’t a bad thief, but he was more of an undercover operative than a stealth operative. So making it out with all his organs was a better result than expected. Again, why he got drunk.
The first prisoner was up, and the charges were read. The man had stolen some food and was charged with the sin of gluttony. Funny considering, the man didn’t look like he had a good meal in years. Hard to be gluttonous without stuff, but that’s how the alliance works. You get charged with a sin and you burn in dragon fire.
For his part, the man bravely faced the maw of the dragon. It was over before the smell could even fill the ground. Where the man had been was a pile of ashes already dispersing in the wind. The sentencer grinned and began reading the next sentence.
It continued. A sin of pride for illegally preaching. Raging heat encompassed the grounds. Refusing to pay rent, sin of sloth. The ash pile grew. Envious enough to burn a building. Burning flesh filled his nostrils. Greed, sloth, wrath, greed, pride, lust, lust. On and on. The ash pile rose even with the wind dispersing it. Finally it was his turn.
“Fineal Taygen, you are sentenced with the sin of wrath for assaulting innocents. Your punishment is death by dragon fire.”
Fineal was tossed onto the ash pile by the guards. In front of him was the magnificent animal reduced to a slave. The dragon’s eyes devoid of the intelligence they should have. He failed. The antidote didn’t work, and now he wouldn’t have a chance to try again. Hopefully when the dragon was awoken, they would know that he did not blame them.
He prayed for the dragon’s freedom, and for his friends’s safety before staring at the dragon’s eyes. If he was to die, he’d face it with courage. Yet as he stared into the dragon’s eyes, they stared back. He almost stepped back in shock. The dragon was waiting. All the others had been immediately incinerated, but the dragon hadn’t burned him yet. Slowly he stepped closer. The dragon just watched him. He took another step, and his nose was touching the dragon.
The dragon finally opened their mouth and he realized this was his end. Even though he wanted to have courage, he found himself unconsciously wincing for the pain that was coming. It wasn’t until he felt a warm tongue that he knew he hadn’t failed. Fineal had succeeded in his mission.
You’re a prisoner in a fantasy world. After a week in jail for (YOUR CHOICE), your true punishment has come. Death by the Dragon’s flame. One by one, you watch men be scorched. It is finally your turn. The dragon reaches its head down, but instead of death, you get a warm lick on the forehead.
Periodic reminder that you are not immune to reactionary radicalization through fandom.
We all know the “jokes” about how old bronies either came out as queer or became fascists - except they’re not really jokes, and a lot of the queer ones admit to having been in the pipeline before they came out (some in a way that implies they never totally got out of said pipeline and don’t understand the gravity of it),
GamerGate was an entire right-wing reactionary movement that was - and this is not hyperbole - partially responsible for turning fascism into a “legitimate” position by the American Overton window, composed entirely of people who feared losing their fan spaces,
We’ve had terfs right here on tumblr dot com BRAGGING about how useful fandom is as a recruiting space,
TJLC was a big pipeline for acephobia on this hellsite in particular, when people argued that headcanoning Sherlock as ace was inherently homophobic because it was denying a TOTALLY GONNA BE CANON (while the creators were promising that it wasn’t going to be canon) gay pairing, and puritanical, and just HAVING that headcanon was saying that people COULDN’T ship Johnlock, all in the interest of a “fake” sexuality and “pretending to be oppressed” and oh whoops there you went,
We see people who all but center their fandom activity and identities around figuring out which people in predominantly queer fandom spaces are SECRETLY PEDOPHILES AND GROOMERS, acting consciously or otherwise under the assumption that predominantly queer fandom spaces are just massively infested with them in a way that other spaces are not for SOME reason, who twist the definition of “pedophilia” in these spaces until it covers shipping a 17-year old fictional character with an 18-year old fictional character, or a 30-year old with a 45-year old, or including an autistic character in a ship, and drawing two 17-year old characters kissing constitutes “child porn”, and who unironically say we should bring back the Hays Code and Censorship Is Good Actually And Our Problem Is We Don’t Do It Enough and this often becomes a pipeline to “sex ed is child abuse; people shouldn’t even know what sex is until they turn 18; you need my consent to wear certain outfits in public if I see them as sexually charged, and Pride SHOULD be an assimilationist sideshow for our corporate overlords family-friendly party with no sadness or anger or ESPECIALLY acknowledgement of sex allowed”,
We’ve seen otherwise progressive people defend literal hate symbols in fanart when pushback against the above brand of reactionaries gets corrupted into zero-nuance “it’s us vs. them so anything they don’t like is Good”,
Even outside of those examples some of the most vicious, unapologetic, blatant queerphobic abuse I’ve seen in recent years hasn’t come from right-wingers but from LGBT+ people, dressing their deep, violent, seething hatred for queer people who aren’t exactly like them in a thin veneer of progressive language, who have become so convinced that they’re the main character of the fucking universe that they think writing or enjoying a queer story that doesn’t resonate with them is more queerphobic than sending a queer person who writes or enjoys such a story countless rape and death threats and denying their identity,
We’ve seen these examples again and again and again, and we keep seeing it again and again and again, so I am once again on my knees BEGGING people to recognize that this is not Something That Happens To Other, BAD People, or Something That Happens To People In BAD Fandoms, or Something That Happens To People On The OTHER Side Of Perennial Drama; this is something that CAN happen to you.
These things are the result of the fact that fandom is, by nature, a place of heightened emotion and if you don’t know what to look out for that is very exploitable; you need to know the methods people use to do this, simply Being In The Right Fandoms or Liking The Right Ships is not enough.
So, if you see someone trying to convince you that you have the ONLY valid approach to any specific character, or ship, or show, or whatever, that your ship is activism and your fanfics are praxis, and liking something else or liking the same thing differently is Only For Bad People, that is the single biggest red flag that YOU NEED TO RUN, THEY’RE TRYING TO SELL YOU SOMETHING THAT YOU DO NOT WANT
America tends to not care about collectives of people. Like, a lot of people were antivax because they didn’t care enough about others, but in other countries that put families, groups, and others first that wouldn’t fly. You’d have a duty to get vaccinated to protect others whether you care about protecting yourself or not.
Which actually explains a lot of strict lawn practices in neighborhoods and stuff. Suddenly the decision of others affects YOUR property value (even if that is stupid and silly and most people love seeing gardens). So there’s strict rules so that no one being individualistic can affect you cause the USA doesn’t care about groups of people.
That’s rambly but maybe it makes sense. I’m sure there’s a better way to put it. But strict HOAs and city ordinances protect the collective from individuals in a country that doesn’t have a culture of caring for the collective. It’s for stupid reasons and all. A garden doesn’t hurt anything and actually helps but remember this is a country that has awful pollen (I literally live in a place nicknamed the pollen capital of the world though it isn’t on the list for 2022. Yeaaaa) because they only planted male trees (of species that have male/female categories) because city planners didn’t want fruit/nuts everywhere on the sidewalk.
not to sound crazy or anything but the fact that HOA's and city ordinances about how you can manage your garden and yard exist is so insane to me. you're supposed to spend your life doing thankless back breaking work so you can own a house with a yard—which you are forced to manage to an exacting, generic, hostile aesthetic appearance according to others preferences, even if it makes the space useless to you?
You can't even have a vegetable garden. or plant a tree. or plant fucking flowers. in YOUR OWN YARD that you paid for and own? this is the american dream?
Do something nice for yourself, you deserve it
If peaceful protests were banned then we would be heading to a point were revolution is necessary quickly. I might be too pedantic about what I mean by rioting. I really mean rioting as more breaking into stores and homes, lighting stuff on fire without concern for safety, involving people who don’t want the be involved (not police or lawmakers or people in those positions of power. Like the random person who was walking down the street at the time). I’ve always been a bit specific about words (like ramifications and consequences don’t mean the same thing). So that’s why I said the Jan 6 RIOT and the George Floyd RIOT. To me the riots are different than the protests and perpetrated by a different group of ideas and often members or nonmembers with more extremist views. Most people won’t riot.
I can see what you mean though about my language suggesting that rioting and anything associated with rioting is bad so maybe the logical step is to ban protests. It’s not something I would have picked up myself so thank you for pointing it out.
I wonder how the prevalence of revolution stories in our (United States) literature and media (hunger games, divergent, etc.) has introduced the idea that revolution is the first thing to do when a system is broken. How has that idea convinced people that rioting may be the correct thing to do (Capitol riot, George Floyd riots, etc.)?
I think some of the differences in our opinions come from experience. It is interesting to hear another prospective. I do want to say I mean specifically the riots and looting surrounding the George Floyd protests. Not the protests themselves. I was appalled at what the police did to Floyd, but my understanding of most of the rioting was that it was caused by people who were more interested in chaos than continuing to protest. Now, I am a white woman who lives in a conservative area and while I do consider myself liberal and support BLM, I do not have the experience of being a oppressed race. So it probably was a bit unfair to mention the George Floyd riots. I wanted more to make it less of a political statement by addressing both sides. The George Floyd riots are in no way the same as the Capitol riots and my original posts did suggest they were the same so that is my bad.
This might be naivety, but I don’t believe riots and revolutions should be considered as anything other than the last option. I have seen too many people in person and online that seem too ready to jump on the revolution train. Watching the January 6 riots terrified me. Watching the George Floyd riots terrified me. Both for different reasons but both terrified me. My original post was only a musing about if the prevalence of revolution stories has primed people to accept revolution as a reasonable early step to fixing a government you don’t like instead of protesting, voting, and writing to your lawmakers. (I also know a lot of people who think voting is pointless and just don’t vote and they are far to ready to take up arms for a revolution.)
But I am glad we agree on voting. I just don’t believe that this country is so far gone that we need to be rioting.
I wonder how the prevalence of revolution stories in our (United States) literature and media (hunger games, divergent, etc.) has introduced the idea that revolution is the first thing to do when a system is broken. How has that idea convinced people that rioting may be the correct thing to do (Capitol riot, George Floyd riots, etc.)?
I’m not sure how you got that I don’t want people to vote from this. I want more people to vote and less people to jump to revolution as the first thought when something goes wrong. I know a lot of people who think a full on Civil War is coming. Do we believe that our system is so broken that it’s time to pick up arms? That’s a pretty extremist point of view from anyone.
Perhaps using revolution instead of revolt or war made it a bit less obvious I was talking about a form of violent uprising against the current government. But it’s cool to know that you think rioting is an appropriate response to any political discussion instead of voting, emailing your political officials, protesting, etc.
Vote please. Voting is one of the best things you can do. Revolutions historically don’t work and I understand there are situations where they are necessary, but I fully believe the USA isn’t at that point yet. Voting is still the answer.
I wonder how the prevalence of revolution stories in our (United States) literature and media (hunger games, divergent, etc.) has introduced the idea that revolution is the first thing to do when a system is broken. How has that idea convinced people that rioting may be the correct thing to do (Capitol riot, George Floyd riots, etc.)?