Notices by ClaraBlackInk (clarablackink@writing.exchange)

@skinnylatte I wish as humans we'd all distribute the educational load a bit more broadly.

I'm in a deep dive with an author's work that discusses 1949 and 1989 pivoting around Eastern European history with some coverage elsewhere when relevant. And just...so much of this is glossed over and hand waved away in actual history lessons but it is the crux of all our current woes.

Like...science ethics are everything, otherwise you get "playful" sociopaths calling their atrocities science.

@skinnylatte As it stands, the history is available to read up on but usually its folks like you and me and others similarly driven to understand and remember.

But, really, the details are so important for everyone to grasp. Folks have their individual thresholds for how much detail and the way they learn it. Still, it is just so much more important than much of the other shit that's taught.

I'm struck by Ceaușescu in my current reading, he echoes into this moment so starkly...

@skinnylatte And yet, I've only known his name in passing.

We (in the US) talk so much about WWII in this mythic way and the fall of the Berlin wall. And it just becomes this vague sports stastistics thing where the knowledge is essentially useless and divorced from reality.

But, my god! Its freeing to see the history and understand...oh, that's a mess that was just never addressed meaningfully.

@FlashMobOfOne I appreciate the way you responded.

I know this is just a small corner of the internet but, respectful disagreement over non-life or death stuff is, I dunno, kind of a big deal.

Thank you.

@_L1vY_

@FlashMobOfOne @_L1vY_ I understand where you're coming from and I think that for some folks the healthy pessimism can be useful for making life affirming choices (like vaccinating because a hospital stay or death are worse outcomes).

But, for some folks it just black pills them.

I think we have to build our hopeful futures and chase away the folks who try to take those away.

Not all hope is naive. Not all pessimism is bad. We probably will always need a bit of both to get through.

@skinnylatte Some of the food culture in the US is also part of our weird as fuck class issues where we see people who handle food as subhuman, unskilled and unworthy of pay. And yet...I mean...you need food to live so there's a deep self hatred within our food culture.

Not everyone treats food workers like this but I think it also ties into home cooked food being "woman's work" while dining out or growing food is largely "nonwhite".

It still baffles me because it isn't always as obvious...

@skinnylatte But then you'll encounter folks who really believe these things and you see how poisoned food is in the US.

Which...again...we need food to live so it is extremely strange and I don't know if there's anywhere else where people are as extreme about it.

@skinnylatte In this vein I've been reflecting on the trajectory of Trader Joes as they've veered away from the ethnic foods towards hyper processed foods.

They had once been more of a bridge between the health food-y markets plus ethnic food stores. And it was in part their selection of nut mixes where you could see that. Then they just started tosing those mixes into sugar.

I was reminded of them recently because for a brief window they had lemongrass sticks...

@skinnylatte And they were a delightful "throw in the oven" item that was just different from any other frozen item at the time in any large grocery store.

I think its now only the smaller stores that have similarly interesting items. Which is sad because its just nice having access to many different types of flavors.

@skinnylatte The most delightful thing about all cuisine outside the bog standard American stuff is the expansive use of ingredients.

I was amazed as a kid at how many different types of food the small Asian grocery store had available vs the big American grocery stores. Occassionally the health food stores had somewhat expansive selections but most of those have homogenized vs the 90s selections.

I let the little guy settle in against me and when I moved slightly to get up, he opened his eyes and put his paw up "wait". And then he went right back to this.

So, I guess five more minutes...

#cats #kittens #CatsOfMastodon

@remote_orb @futurebird I think most of the kids that are successfully targeted tend to lack this type of parenting.

You shouldn't have to watch them all the time or control their behavior. This issue is bigger than individual parenting. We need real communities and accountability for companies (and individual bad actors).

Instead you're mostly abandoned to whatever you as a parent can muster for the duration of your time as one. And, it shouldn't be that way.

@futurebird @remote_orb "But it is possible to make it harder for such people. And it's possible to catch them."

This.

I hate that bad actors frame these issues to make kids look annoying or make parents feel more guilty when they aren't the real problem.

Predators are the issue. We have and can build environments that don't enable predatory behavior.

@futurebird @david_chisnall @AnarchoNinaAnalyzes I find myself screaming that we're just seeing the sorts of things that happened to the Indigenous population happening again with weirder optics.

Its easier to talk about Nazis than it is to talk about how this looks similar to the roots of our country because these folks in power actively don't want that discussion. But, we're just picking up that same operating manual.

Pushing people out of areas those in power want to have access to...

@futurebird @david_chisnall @AnarchoNinaAnalyzes Even if that space is more ideological than physical.

The broken treaties, the use of random racists to be foot soldiers with dreams of conquest in their eyes and various version of small pox blankets by just disregarding hygenic needs and putting people in a place where mosquitos may bring something horrid.

It is obviously "different" but it is just the same too. Its the legacy of that.

@futurebird @david_chisnall @AnarchoNinaAnalyzes Because, well, the self deportation is similar to the way that Indigenous people are treated as being from somewhere else despite being here first.

Coming from California myself I am horrified to see how no one* seems to understand that the hispanic population (immigrants or not) are woven into the fabric of the state (as well as often having Indigenous roots too). So, it feels like a direct continuation of gold rush era tactics.

*media reports

I'm dying over this reddit comment. Not saying that it is wrong but the framing of books as "old timey entertainment" is funny to me. Like my grandpa talking about farming using mules.

#bookstodon #reading #books

@bri_seven
I'm also bummed that search engines no longer help you find the most popular reliable or semi reliable website for a topic.

This used to be best within niches but now I really need a hunan to recommend niche sites because I no longer consider search engines reliable. They're something to be navigated but not trusted.

Though that's also on all the folks who gamed search engines to boost their traffic. It isn't only the companies.

@futurebird

@skinnylatte I'm glad you exist and that you've made choices that enrich your sense of who you are despite the precarity and sacrifices.

I love seeing you talk about the various nuances of your experiences. Often it can be difficult for people to share both the bad and the good of making choices that you're happy with while also recognizing that happiness is complicated.

@gerrymcgovern @HistoPol I mean, anyone framing this as a situation to be won isn't actually able to make a coherent argument.

A machine is a tool. If your fridge started demanding that you sacrifice children in order to get ice cubes you would unplug it or get your head checked.

And, this is essentially tech bros asking for human sacrifices on a silicon altar. The priesthood is clearly too high on something and deeply unwell.

No one actually wins this scenario.