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bro i am literally just vibing

@nervouslittleman

man I'm gay

I know people on tumblr looove stories of underwater cave diving, but I haven't seen anyone talk about nitrogen narcosis aka "raptures of the deep"

basically when you want to get your advanced scuba certification (allowing you to go more than 60 feet deep) you have to undergo a very specific test: your instructor takes you down past the 60+ foot threshold, and she brings a little underwater white board with her.

she writes a very basic math problem on that board. 6 + 15. she shows it to you, and you have to solve it.

if you can solve it, you're good. that is the hardest part of the test.

because here's what happens: there is a subset of people, and we have no real idea why this happens only to them, who lose their minds at depth. they're not dying, they're not running out of oxygen, they just completely lose their sense of identity when deep in the sea.

a woman on a dive my instructor led once vanished during the course of the excursion. they were diving near this dropoff point, beyond which the depth exceeded 60 feet and he'd told them not to go down that way. the instructor made his way over to look for her and found a guy sitting at the edge of the dropoff (an underwater cliff situation) just staring down into the dark. the guy is okay, but he's at the threshold, spacing out, and mentally difficult to reach. they try to communicate, and finally the guy just points down into the dark, knowing he can't go down there, but he saw the woman go.

instructor is deep water certified and he goes down. he shines his light into the dark, down onto the seafloor which is at 90 feet below the surface. he sees the woman, her arms locked to her sides, moving like a fish, swimming furiously in circles in the pitch black.

she is hard to catch but he stops her and checks her remaining oxygen: she is almost out, on account of swimming a marathon for absolutely no reason. he is able to drag her back up, get her to a stable depth to decompress, and bring her to the surface safely.

when their masks are off and he finally asks her what happened, and why was she swimming like that, she says she fully, 100% believed she was a mermaid, had always been a mermaid, and something was hunting her in the dark 👍

Analysis of data from dozens of foraging societies around the world shows that women hunt in at least 79% of these societies, opposing the widespread belief that men exclusively hunt and women exclusively gather. Abigail Anderson of Seattle Pacific University, US, and colleagues presented these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on June 28, 2023. A common belief holds that, among foraging populations, men have typically hunted animals while women gathered plant products for food. However, mounting archaeological evidence from across human history and prehistory is challenging this paradigm; for instance, women in many societies have been found buried alongside big-game hunting tools. Some researchers have suggested that women's role as hunters was confined to the past, with more recent foraging societies following the paradigm of men as hunters and women as gatherers. To investigate that possibility, Anderson and colleagues analyzed data from the past 100 years on 63 foraging societies around the world, including societies in North and South America, Africa, Australia, Asia, and the Oceanic region. They found that women hunt in 79% of the analyzed societies, regardless of their status as mothers. More than 70% of female hunting appears to be intentional—as opposed to opportunistic killing of animals encountered while performing other activities, and intentional hunting by women appears to target game of all sizes, most often large game. The analysis also revealed that women are actively involved in teaching hunting practices and that they often employ a greater variety of weapon choice and hunting strategies than men. These findings suggest that, in many foraging societies, women are skilled hunters and play an instrumental role in the practice, adding to the evidence opposing long-held perceptions about gender roles in foraging societies. The authors note that these stereotypes have influenced previous archaeological studies, with, for instance, some researchers reluctant to interpret objects buried with women as hunting tools. They call for reevaluation of such evidence and caution against misapplying the idea of men as hunters and women as gatherers in future research. The authors add, "Evidence from around the world shows that women participate in subsistence hunting in the majority of cultures."
Source: phys.org

I really hope people online aren't getting the wrong impression of unions and that they're flawless Things that will protect them from any and all mistreatment and that strikes are fun little treats union workers get

Unions are People not Things. Union leaders can fuck up. Unions can definitely operate in a way that gets you low wages and poor benefits if you're not being represented well.

A union by itself does not guarantee you anything. Unions take work and money to run. You pay dues, you go to meetings, you vote. You protect each other in a union. You don't join a union and magically have everything taken care of for you.

Strikes are a powerful tool but are scary. They're not a goal to achieve. Unions don't aim to go on strike during negotiations.

A housewife takes a lover during the day, while her husband is at work. Not aware that 9 year old son was hiding in the closet. Her husband came home unexpectedly, so she hid her lover in the closet. The boy now has company.

Boy: ‟Dark in here.” Man: ‟Yes it is.” Boy: ‟I have a baseball.” Man: ‟That’s nice.” Boy: ‟Want to buy it?” Man: ‟No, thanks.” Boy: ‟That’s my dad outside.” Man: ‟How much did you say the baseball was again?” Boy: ‟$250.”

In the next few weeks, it happens again that the boy and the mom’s lover are in the closet together.

Boy: ‟Dark in here.” Man: ‟Yes, it is..” Boy: ‟I have a baseball glove.” Man: ‟That’s nice.” Boy: ‟Want to buy it?” Man: ‟No, thanks.” Boy: ‟I think I just remembered something I needed to tell my dad.” Man: ‟How much did you say the glove was again?” Boy: ‟$750.” Man: ‟Fine.”

A few days later, the father says to the boy, ‟Grab your glove. Let’s go outside and toss the baseball!” The boy says, ‟I can’t. I sold them.” The father asks, ‟How much did you sell them for?” The son says, ‟$1,000.” The father says, ‟It’s terrible to over-charge your friends like that. That is way more than those two things cost. I’m going to take you to church and make you confess.”

They go to church and the father alerts the priest and makes the little boy sit in the confession booth and closes the door.

The boy says, ‟Dark in here.” The priest says, ‟Do not start that shit again.”

JEFF WE TALKED ABOUT THIS

between tumblr being found guilty of moderating lgbtq content unequally during the 2018 ban in court and @ sorryforpartyrocking being nuked for suggesting one of tumblr staff may have investment in defending terfs to now many different trans women having their text posts and selfies being flagged as mature without the opportunity to appeal in any meaningful way (one of which was nuked herself)… it’s very. hmmmm. it’s a bad look. as if staff wasn’t already on thin ice for refusing to engage in any effective way with hate speech. “queerest space on the internet” my ass

Rewatching Truman Show for the first time in a long time, and the detail that’s stuck with me this time is the set design.

The characters drive modern cars and hock modern products, but it’s all presented with a veneer of 1950s wholesome applecheeked Americana. Truman’s life is presented as an escape for the audience from the drudgery of the modern day, and the aesthetic they’ve chosen for this is the post-war economic boom. This is the simple time, the movie says. This is the good time. Doesn’t the modern day suck? Let’s go back and see our friends from the days when life was good.

And it’s a lie. Truman’s life is a lie, and the image of white picket fenced suburbia they’ve presented is a lie. It’s an elaborate construction to recreate a false memory that’s comfortable for advertisers. The movie is a satire, but it’s also a very blatant statement against the nostalgia for a golden age which never existed. It’s a lie. It doesn’t exist.

I don’t know. I’m spitballing. I’m biased because I despise mid-20th century Americana and I naturally treat it with hostility, but it’s very gratifying to see a movie kind of agree with me.

Let me tell you a story.

Earlier in the summer, I went to Florida with my friend. We decided to visit a town nearish to where we were staying called Seaside, as we had heard it was a cute place. What I did not know at the time was that Seaside is the place where they filmed The Truman Show. It was a "master-planned community," constructed in the 80s to be the perfect beach town.

Seaside, FL

Seahaven

And yes, it really does look Like That. Not just in their tourist-agency photos, in real life it looks like that. Arguably the irl Seaside is even prettier than movie Seahaven, because the the office buildings where Truman works don't exist; the town is 100% cutesy homes and little shops.

okay okay so like i don’t wanna kill the party but i just saw an instagram shop selling a shirt that says now i am become death the destroyer of worlds in barbie font and i just sigh i just like i get the novelty of barbie and oppenheimer weekend but i have got to stress the bomb changed the entire world forever and wiped out over a quarter of a million people i think maybe we gotta kinda take a step back here when we start selling it as if it’s fun hot girl summer fodder

before you start babygirling oppenheimer just know that from what i’ve heard the film does not address downwinders, does not have a singular japanese person in it, and exploited our museums by claiming photos on loan for personal use (meaning they did not have to pay a penny to use them in the film despite being a multi-million dollar production).

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everyone's like wehhhhh why doesn't doctor house gets suuuueeed! like my man. literally every patient he sees is someone that's been trying to find a diagnosis for ages. i could live with a little medical malpractice if it were coming from someone ready to break into my home to look for allergens and not simply half heartedly listen to me before suggesting I lose weight and take ages of back and forth arguing to order a single test

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"it's medical malpractice" have u ever been a doctor? most medicine is malpractice. let the man limp around chewing vicodin doing 50 invasive tests please

"but if you're pro-union, why are you anti-cop-union?" because cops are not laborers. what cops do is not labor. they are enforcers of the laws that oppress laborers and exist solely to protect capital. don't bother me with stupid questions.

who keeps killing striking workers???

the cops

how come it's virtually impossible to hold killer cops accountable for their murder???

the cop unions