hey btw if ur transphobic don’t interact with my blog. we support trans people here

🗣️THE MOTHER FUCKING SONG OF THE SUMMER!!! END ALL DEBATES!!

The prospect of making a moral argument against landlordism to begin with is very silly to me. what are we, georgists? Let's be marxists yeah?

Landlordism is an unsustainable aspect of capitalist society because it works in concert with the speculative financial wing of the economy to scoop purchasing power produced by the productive sectors of the economy off the top and lock it away in savings accounts where it can't circulate and create more economic activity to sustain the economic growth that capitalism demands.

As purchasing power pools at the top via the extraction of these rents, the face of the nominal economy becomes ever more referential, as the pricing mechanism increasingly prioritizes sign-value and, more toxically, speculative-value over use-value, causing a disconnect between the value of sectors of the economy in terms of their actual use and their speculative use as realized in ever-more-complex and self-referential financial games-- In short, it makes more and more destructive speculative bubbles more and more common, locking up more and more savings into these stockpiles into its wake until there is an inevitable total crisis of liquidity where the actually essential productive/critical sectors of the economy entirely lose their capacity to function.

The real critique is that simple at base, with no moralism required, hope this helps!

im going to try and paraphrase this in very basic terms.

landlords don’t have to be thought of as evil, to be recognized as a problem. the more houses are owned by landlords, the more working-class people have to rent, and the less money they have to buy their own houses.... which are more and more expensive to buy, because less and less of them are ever put up for sale. landlords extract a profit from their laborer tenants, and use that money to outbid them for the remaining houses.

the way houses are valued goes from ‘a place where you live’ to ‘property you own’ to ‘a source of income’, and real estate becomes a market for speculative investment: the value of a house is now entirely theoretical, based on landlords guessing how much money they might be able to make off the house, in the future.

so the landlords spend all their time, and all the money they take away from their renters, speculating on future profits, and buying and selling houses to each other based only on these guesses as to how much profit they might be able to theoretically make later. and when it turns out they’ve guessed wrong, they lose that money. and sometimes they just lie to each other to make more money. and money becomes very theoretical, too. billions of dollars get tied up like this, in completely abstract blocks of hypothetical value, totally divorced from any real-world context, and the ‘economy’ starts rising and falling in unregulated and unpredictable--but totally inevitable--boom and bust cycles.

and in the meantime, the people on the ground, who get their money by actually making it, have no more power, no more money, and no more homes.

landlords aren’t evil. they’re just part of a very stupid problem.

This is what happened in Australia, which is why the mean price of a residential dwelling in my state is now $1.1 million dollars.

They're so confident about the imaginary content-restricting version of libraries that exist in their heads.

When I was eleven, I checked out weird ass fantasy romance erotica on my library card.

I went to the library. I asked the librarian where the books were. They led me to the section. I picked out the fantasy romance of my choice. They asked if I needed help checking it out. I said no. I checked it out. I read it.

No one can stop you from reading anything at the library. No librarian will tell you not to read a certain book. They might suggest a book to you, but they won't tell you not to read anything.

I read fucking Game of Thrones when I was like. Twelve. I read weird gay genderqueer shapeshifter romance when I was about fifteen. There was never any kind of "age gate" or censorship from librarians. I don't know if it's different in America, or if things have changed for the worse in the last twenty years, but I've never encountered any kind of system which prevents kids from reading whatever books they please in libraries.

I never tried checking them out, but I used to go grab erotica books and read them in the library, there's not like... a wall. they're on the shelves.

Okay person whonactually works at a public library here. We are specifically instructed NOT to comment on or even mention what people are checking out unless the person brings it up to us first. And I have had times where parents or kids will ask me if I think a book is appropriate which I will then give my opinion on, but I would check out whatever a kid brought up to me if that happened. Also, we let kids go wherever the fun they want, but they mostly stay in the kids are cuz there are toys there. But we are not policing every single kid to make sure they're staying in the "right" place.

Also, the conversation about restricting kids access to "inappropriate" material really bothers me first because what really counts as inappropriate and how do we apply the same standard to every person ethically (answer: we cant), but second because I think it's pretty patronizing to actual kids. Kids are smart, and I know a lot of adults don't get that, but kids are really intelligent and most of them will be able to identify things that are uncomfortable for them. So the experience of exploring and finding limits and interests is a healthy thing that all kids should have the option to experience in a safe environment like (hopefully) a library

Anyway. Just some thoughts from the perspective of a library employee

Another public librarian here.

My old library system (30 libraries) had gotten a number of complaints from older women that the DVDs were not clearly marked as adult. For reference, we have the "adult" (meaning not children's but ranging from pg-13 to R) on its own shelf and all of the "childrens" movies are on the other side.

So the technical processing team decided to start sticking R-18 labels on anything that was rated (R or NC17). And like we were a month or two into it before our collection manager threw up her hands and said, What the fuck?

Essentially, the problem was that we had a bunch of older women (moms and bitties included) saying that they didn't want to watch adult movies (or they wanted to make sure their kids weren't checking them out)

But NO WHERE was a policy saying we were to restrict checkouts. If a 6 year old handed me IT or Django, they got it. Even post stickering.

So our collection manager was pissed because she finally realized what was bothering her. Not only was the rating ALREADY ON THE FUCKING BOX, (on the back, where it ALWAYS is), but now people were using this as an excuse against library purchasing because you could see how many "evil adult" movies were on the shelf.

So we promptly took all the stickers off, circ went back up, and we then calmly explained to the bitties where to find the rating on the back of the box.

This is all to say that my CM took the Right to Read (watch/etc) super seriously and made sure that we all knew that anyone could check out whatever they wanted and if they wanted to file a complaint they could.

Long story short you don't say SHIT to anyone regardless of what they check out. AND that includes giant tatted dudes checking out the entirety of our Barbie collection. No one is too old, too young or too anything to check out what they want at the library.

What We Do In The Shadows - Season 5

I have ADHD so I’m immune to podcast

stealing this from @chefpyro 's tags cause same

always thought that it was crazy other folks with adhd couldn't focus on podcasts when i was totally immune from that issue then quarantine happened, i stopped driving long distances every day, and you will never fucking believe what I learned I can't do

Wait. Do people just sit down and have a podcast without any other sides, like it's a full meal? Podcast is something you ADD to other activity. That's like eating a bowl of cilantro and going "mmm yummy salad"

[id: #i can only be podcasted when i’m being debuffed by a hand activity /end id]

i hate nerves and anxiety. oh nooo i am scared of acting like a weird bitch to remedy this i will act like a weird bitch

As someone who’s living with a middle school social studies teacher, all the posts along the lines of “why did we never learn about this historical event in school” just make me go “because your teacher was supposed to cover all of US history in one year, and they didn’t get to the Revolutionary War until Halloween because they were urged to slow down the progression of the lessons because a more senior teacher was running behind, and they didn’t get to the Civil War until Valentine’s Day because the school kept scheduling every special event during social studies because there’s no end-of-grade testing for that subject, and they didn’t get to WWI until May because they were sick for a few days and the substitute couldn’t do much more than babysit, and now they’re having to do the entire Cold War in two days, so that’s why you didn’t hear about the lesbian inventor of the circus peanut. They would have loved to tell you about the lesbian inventor of the circus peanut!”

Welcome to our hellsite, Redditors!

it is a parents responsibility to play good music during their child’s formative years. make sure the nostalgia playlist is a banger

the x files is funny because at the time it was “progressive” or whatever to have the ultra-rational, levelheaded character be a woman

but it’s also a show where all the fucked up alien shit actually is real, so she’s just constantly wrong about everything

What’s funny is how often they’re both wrong. Mulder will be like “the victims all had their livers scooped clean out this is obviously the aliens escalating from cattle mutilation” and Scully will be like “don’t be silly Mulder this is clearly just a serial killer who’s really good with surgical tools” and then it turns out the actual killer is an immortal sewer man who comes out ever quarterly century to feast on human liver.

doctor who producer in the 60s: man it sucks that william hartnell is leaving the show. guess we have to cancel it :/

the smartest motherfucker to ever work in television: wait, i have an idea

sometimes plushies make me cry because it’s like. they’re little guys made to be loved. their only purpose is to be held and hugged and loved. we made them because we love making things and we love loving things. and they’re so cute

Years back, I was working at a specialty store, and we got this HUGE crate of plushy toys. They were all insanely cute and squishy. I knew kids would go nuts for them, as it was the first week of December, so parents and grandparents often had kids with them while shopping for furniture, lamps, cooking equipment, lights, etc.

One night, I was working my last hour of my shift covering the Customer Service desk, which meant when I wasn't busy, I was supposed to help clean up around the cash registers, including taking back items people changed their minds about at the checkout. Earlier, I had witnessed a kid carrying thos cute plushy toy. It was a brown and white hedgehog. The kid, at the checkout, saw a remote control car and he told his dad he qanted it. The dad told him, "The plushy or the car- you can't have both" (by the way, I respect boundaries with kids and parents sticking to their guns about it), and the kid picked the car.

So, I'm cleaning up, have less than an hour left of my shift, and I see the little plushy hedgehog. Somehow, he never got put back nor had anyone else seen him and decided to buy him. He was just sitting there, slumped to the side, unattended.

It's Christmas and I'm a sentimental old sap at heart. My brain starts replaying the scene from RUDOLPH where he's on the Island of Misfot Toys, and is told a toy is never truly happy until it is loved. I picked him up and quickly took him back to the bin with the plushies but... It was empty. He was literally the last plushy toy and my boss was about to wheel the bin out. We weren't getting any more toys till November, so that meant any toys left at this point needed to sell or they'd be sent to the dump.

I brought the little hedgehog to the front, figuring someone would see him with the candy, candles, & Christmas brick-a-brack, and fall in love with him. When I finished my shift, I went to ask my manager a question and as I passed the Christmas candle display - there he sat, the sad little slumped over hedgehog plushy. No one had bought him, or even moved him.

My manager, Phillip, saw me and the hedgehog. He asked how the hedgehog got there. I told him how I'd put him there when the bin got sent back, and he was the only plushy left. Philip had kids, I figured he'd probably get sentimental and buy it for his kids. Nope. He shrugged and said he'd send it back to be disposed of.

That night, I came home with a plushy hedgehog in my passenger seat. My mom saw him and just thought he was the cutest little hedgehog and asked what I wanted to do with him. I told her the story, then added I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with him.

My mom is a child psychiatrist, specializing in children with PTSD and brain damage that results in learning problems/issues with processing their emotions. She asked if she could have the plushy hedgehog (even offered to pay me for him, she didn't expect me to just give him over), so kids could hug him when they were upset in session.

Murphy, the plushy hedgehog that still slumps a little to the left when seated, has been hugged by hundreds of kids. Little girls have held him tight while explaining about bullies, little boys have held him tight while crying over their panic attacks, younger siblings have held him to whisper secrets while elder siblings and parents talk about self-soothing techniques, teenagers have hugged Murphy while talking about the worst day of their lives. Murphy has also been hugged by kids excitedly chatting about a new friend at school, a teen girl excited to be called by her name instead of her dead-name, little kids proudly saying they've mastered their ABCs, and even staff members who just need to come chat over a case they are having trouble with.

Every now and then, my mom brings Murphy home for a weekend. He gets washed (she calls it a Spa Weekend, to her coworkers, all of them laughing), dried, and sits outside with my mom in the sunshine to get aired out, then on Monday, they are back to work. Some kids even just ask to hold Murphy while they talk, no matter their mood or what they want to talk about. They just want to hug Murphy.

So yes. Plushies are made for one purpose. To be hugged and loved. To be a comfort.

2003: It sounds incredible, but in the future whole webpages full of images and videos will load in the blink of an eye.

2023: It sounds incredible, but text-only news articles used to load in the blink of an eye.

one thing about me is that i am viscerally against inconveniencing retail and food workers… the checkout guy just mistakenly asked to see my ID because he thought my sparking water was hard seltzer and my ass just showed it to him instead of saying anything. i think i would rather die then correct him in his home turf

he realized and was like “why did you show me” and i was like “you have never done anything wrong ever in your life”