Truck comes first and if there is any money left over the kids may eat. - Modern Consumer Patriarchy

she got her degree and started removing the parasite 🙏

Tinfoil hat moment but I don't think he was dumb, I think he was strategic. He put her in a situation in which she had to either: sell her car (so the only means of transportation is now in his name), or maybe even to drop out (to have time for the second job) if she wants to feed the kids. He did it right when she was aaaaaalmost done with her degree. Either way, it's sabotage.

Sometimes when an action makes NO sense to us ("he's like a stupid alien"), it's bc we are not understanding its true motivation/purpouse. If his goal was control, financial pressure and limiting her options due to lack of funds, it makes perfect sensie to buy the truck.

Tinfoil hat moment over!

I wanna add that a lot of times people look at abusers like they are Moriarty, and assume that their actions are planned ahead of time. But I think most abusers are actually really impulsive and really bad at planning more than a few moves ahead.

Therefore, here is an alternative explanation based entirely on his impulsive feelings:

I think we often talk about abusers like we talk about evolution. We say polar bears evolved to have white coats for camouflage. We talk about evolution like it has a plan and is doing things on purpose. But evolution doesn't care about camouflage. Birth rates are all that matter, but evolution doesn't even "care" about them.

I think the majority of abusers don't actually plan things out. They just act impulsively on malicious feelings. It makes them feel good to have lots of power, so they take whatever power they can find. It makes them feel good to make their victims uncomfortable so they do that.

Most abuse tactics can be explained (and should be defended against) as if they are strategic. Just like evolution, it's just easier to talk about that way. But I think most abuser tactics are really just the consequence of impulsively acting on malicious feelings.

Basically: I don't think you need a tinfoil hat. Abusers like gaining power. And they don't need conspiracy or long term planning to get that power.

sylphrena!💙 this has been in my wips for too long.. I’m always meaning to do more cosmere art but I’ve gotta catch up on the books first 😭 most of the way through rhythm of war rn, I’m nearly there!!

Unsurprisingly, a lot of the commentary I'm seeing about this has been of the "But--but--I would do the same thing because I don't want anything bad to happen to the deer!"

Look. I love wildlife, and I love getting to see deer, coyotes, and even the occasional black bear in my neighborhood. But they are here because there is good habitat nearby with lots of natural food sources, not because I deliberately put out food for them to eat. I respect them as wild animals with whom my relationship is very different compared to the domesticated animals I take care of every day. A deer is not a sheep or a horse; a coyote is not a dog.

People who do things like try to tame deer or, worse yet, try to raise a fawn or other young wildlife like pets are robbing those wild animals of their natural existences. We've already wrought our own preferences on the landscape to a severe degree, tearing the wildness out of it to create lawns and farms and subdivisions and strip malls. When we then dismiss the wildness of these animals and impress our own desire for connection on our terms on them, we are harming them.

I've already written elsewhere about the difference between "tame" and "domesticated". No matter how docile that deer seems, it is never going to be as (relatively) safe and tractable as a domesticated sheep or goat. It will always be more unpredictable, and more likely to lash out suddenly at a person due to fear, or hormones, or protection of young.

These animals need their wild instincts to be intact if they are going to survive without being dependent on us. They need those instincts in order to find mates and keep the gene pool stirred up. Their instincts keep them safe from danger, including humans. And their instincts never totally go away, no matter how much we may try to tame them otherwise.

This is why a good wildlife rehab is going to minimize handling of the wild animals they care for, especially those that are going to be able to be released back into the wild. The less comfortable these animals are with humans, the better their chances of surviving in the wild and having fulfilling, natural lives. Wildlife that retain their wariness of humans are less likely to end up falling prey to hunting, or being killed as nuisance animals when they get too aggressive in seeking food or otherwise coming into conflict with people.

The person who painted "pet" on a fully grown white-tailed buck and put a collar around his neck may have felt like they were doing that deer a kindness, but they have likely robbed him of the chance to just live a natural life as his own, independent being out in the woods and fields. He might be out there, sure, but perhaps he won't mate because he imprinted on humans. Or maybe he will end up shot by a hunter in spite of the precautions because he's just too friendly and those antlers are worth taking the shot.

There will always be something missing from this deer's life because of the arrogance of someone who thought they could own and keep and control a wild-born animal for their own enjoyment, instead of allowing him to come and go as he pleased. Honestly, it reminds me of King Haggard from Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn, whose response to seeing something beautiful was to capture it and keep it rather than simply enjoying and remembering that magical moment:

"I like to watch them. They fill me with joy. The first I felt it I thought I was going to die. I said to the Red Bull I must have them, all of them, all there are. For nothing makes me happy but their shining and their grace. So the Red Bull caught them. Each time I see the unicorns, my unicorns, it is like that morning in the woods and I am truly young, in spite of myself."

That's how I feel about people who are willing to drastically alter a wild animal's behavior for their own selfish benefit, even if they think they're being kind. I know I'm fighting a bit of an uphill battle in this, but I'm rather stubborn that way.

Saw this. You can’t habituate an animal to people and then think you can keep it safe in the wild.

Actually your society is the freaks for shooting everything that moves and burning half your "nature reserves" every year so that upperclass dandies can eat leaded pheasant. North Americans are the well adjusted ones here, your country has become a desolate suburban lawn in island form

my opinion as an american is that we spend way too much time trying to save african megafauna and nowhere near enough time making fun of the english for turning an entire island--which was once a hazelnut food forest--into a goddamn lawn.

bill bryson once actually wrote down in a whole book and got published that the english were superb gardeners and i about threw the book out the window i was that outraged. the english!!! the fucking ENGLISH. them? that's who you want to laud? the english

the

THERE ARE A GRAND FUCKING TOTAL OF ZERO STAPLE CROPS ORIGINALLY OR EVEN PRIMARILY CULTIVATED BY THE ENGLISH. NONE OF THEM. NOT POTATOES NOT WHEAT NOT TURNIPS NOT RYE. THEY GNAWED THEIR ISLAND DOWN TO A NUB FOR NOTHING. THE WOLVES AND BEARS ALL GONE FOR NOTHING. THE WILDCATS AND BIRDS AND MUSTELIDS AND INSECTS, GONE IN THEIR THOUSANDS, FOR NOTHING. FOR SOME SHEEP. FOR

THEIR MAIN AGRICULTURAL EXPORT IS FAMINE

anyway the english approach to agriculture, biodiversity, and environmentalism is roughly on par with a dog's approach to someone else's homework and everywhere in the world that has inherited their cack-fisted disdain for nature has suffered immensely. i can't overstate enough how bad things have been and still are.

please make fun of them. it's the least they fucking deserve.

na

my old man dog isn't great at hopping up on the couch anymore but he CAN do it and he will NOT accept help. it's almost adorable except when he just stands in front of me and barks at me to get out of "his" spot so that i'll stop what i'm doing, get up off the couch, and watch as he spends 5 minutes hyping himself up to jump into my newly vacant seat

"just don't sit in his spot" no you see he doesn't have a spot. any spot that i am currently sitting in becomes his spot. in this man's eyes i do not sit on the couch for my own pleasure, i merely use my ass to warm up the cushion for him. and i can't say no because like....... look at him

everyone who's reblogging this without the picture of my handsome boy needs to STOP and reblog this version instead. gaze upon him. show him to your followers. i command thee

every time i ask people if they do any new years resolutions its all ooooo i dont like making them bc i fail or ohhhhh no i couldnt keep up wiht that and then when they ask me and i tell them about Pasta Quest (i am eating as many different pasta shapes as possible in the space of a year) or when i did Fruit Adventures (every time i saw a fruit i had never eaten before id get one and eat it and read the wikipedia article about it) theyre like hang on i forgot you can make Fun Ones i want a fun one

I don’t think humans should be living in studio apartments or little one bedroom apartments you can barely turn around in. It’s like how the minimum tank size requirement for a betta fish is technically 2.5 gallons but you’re a monster if you put them in anything less than 5 gallons. I think people deserve at least one extra room in their house.

I get wanting to avoid urban sprawl, wanting to use space efficiently or whatever but goddamn. You should have space for potted plants, for a pullout couch for when your mother comes to visit, space to pursue your hobbies. I don’t think that’s a greedy thing to want.

I see some of the apartments listed in NYC and it’s like. that should be illegal. I’ve seen snakes with enclosures bigger than that

Answer and reblog with what country you’re from and if you live or have lived primarily in the country or in the city

hey y'all if you're getting freaked over "overpopulation" or have heard of someone who is, watch this beautifully explained video please and thank you

I was going to get my degree in History

I dropped out and now I study Environmental Sciences

When environmental writers talk about "Overpopulation" I realize they have not studied History and I am afraid

I urge everyone to challenge and criticize the notion of "Overpopulation" whenever and wherever it appears.

As the video in the above link simply and elegantly illustrates, human population increased dramatically in the 20th century simply because fewer people were dying at young ages. For most of human history, half of humans died in childhood, and many humans died much younger than the modern life expectancy. In order to keep the population steady, human families had to have enough children so that on average, a pair of two humans would have two children (enough to replace themselves) survive long enough to successfully have their own kids.

Without modern medicine, half of children will die in childhood, so if you want 2 kids to grow up and have kids of their own, better have at least four. And in a world where an infected cut or a bad illness can easily kill you, even people who survive to adulthood might not live to become parents themselves, so better make it five. But as with the modern world, not everybody will have children, so six is a better number, given that a certain share of people may be infertile or run off and become a monk. And you might of course be particularly unlucky with any of the above, so better make it seven.

Of course, people weren't consciously thinking about the replacement rate thing, but I reckon cultural ideas about family size have this kind of math going on under the hood.

The exponential population increase of the 20th century happened because of an unavoidable lag in cultural changes after the change in death rate. People didn't know their kids would survive childhood at higher rates until the kids did survive childhood.

There is no possible way we can significantly decrease the human population within the next 50 or even 100 years without killing people. Why? Because most people who are 20 right now will still be alive in 50 years, assuming life expectancy follows current trends. Birth rates have already declined very dramatically in most areas of the world. This shows that humans are actually pretty damn good at self-regulating their population. It's just that the decline in death rate was relatively sudden and unprecedented, and humans couldn't respond to it until it had already occurred.

Areas that still have high birth rates, have little access to birth control and relatively high childhood death rates. The simple solution is to make health care and family planning safely and easily available for all people.

I think the video illustrates something that is particularly important to notice: WHICH populations are expected to grow. Africa grows the most. The countries that benefited first from lowered death rates—wealthy colonizing countries—have already re-adjusted their birth rates, so they don't grow. White skinned folks will soon be far outnumbered. Hmmmmm...why would we be concerned about this?

To illustrate why the overpopulation argument is so terrifying, here is a little excerpt from the book "Every Living Thing: The Politics of Life in Common" by Jenell Johnson. Trigger warning for genocide and discussion of Nazi ideology (what a surprise...not)

This very blatant and disgusting display of ecofascism being quoted and discussed is obvious, but I fear the concept of "Overpopulation" makes ecofascism acceptable in ways that are perhaps not so obvious.

I believe that every time we say: "Humans' impact on the earth is so terrible!" "Nature would be better off without humans destroying it." "Our species has had a devastating impact on this planet!" "Maybe nature will heal when humans go extinct." "Humans do nothing but kill and destroy everything." We are softening our world slightly more to the evil and abhorrent ideologies in these pages.

What would it look like, if "humans" were held accountable for the damage to the Earth? Do you think every human would be "held accountable" equally? Who do you think would be "held accountable" first? Who most likely dies when there are heat waves, floods, and tornadoes? Who cannot evacuate? Who loses everything, having no external store of capital outside of their home?

And if you think Earth would be better without humans, are you going to volunteer to go first?...or do you expect someone else to...? ...or do you say this to make yourself feel bad about being human as a form of self-punishment, disregarding that your contempt punishes others too?...

George Ford Morris - Battling Pegases (1925)

No idea why these prehistoric handprints in the caves make me feel Things but they do, whenever I see them. I even remember watching Brother Bear as a kid and being hypnotized by the imagery, lol. Painted river pebbles, will make two macrame pendants with rough stone beads with them

I have trouble taking care of my teeth because everything that involves doing that is a sensory nightmare. I decide to do some research to see if there's anything I can do about this. The results?

"How to make your autistic child brush their teeth"

"Autistic Children and Sensory issues relating to tooth brushing"

"How to get your little shit to brush his fucking teeth"

Like, yeah Google, thanks, that really helps. And like, even if I was a child, some of the advice seemed... unhelpful. Like, doing a dance and singing a song while brushing your teeth? Even for a kid, I don't think that would help distract from a sensory experience as intense as brushing your teeth. Like, the extremely intense and unpleasant flavor, the intense feeling of the brush against your teeth scraping across it, even mouthwash has such an intense and disgusting flavor that I have difficulty keeping it in my mouth for more than a few seconds. I wish there was SOMETHING that could be done.

I actually did research on how to keep your teeth clean if you don't have access to a toothbrush or toothpaste! I needed the info for a story, but thankfully it also has real world applications. Maybe something here will help:

Obviously not all of that is from my pre-modern teeth cleaning research—some is from personal experience! But hopefully something in there is useful to you

It's absolute bullshit that we have to approach these problems sideways because the people actually making "helpful" articles about it are all ableist :| Maybe some day soon we as a society can get over that.

Oh my God you are my hero thank you so much

I’M

THE HIGHWAYMAN

I’M

THE HIGHWAYMAN

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

thinking about a goat hill prairie in september, where the stiff gentians pop in a field of pinky-purple, yellow, and a ridiculous amount of clouded sulfur butterfies

it was a sunday in september and I was in the mountains. life was somehow good for awhile.