Current Status

So i guess Capcom said Dragons Dogma 2 will have improved AI to ‘give the world life’ and people are freaking out because “AI” and even putting aside the fact that “video game AI” is a very very very very established concept its kinda funny seeing people freak out and at the same time admitting to not knowing exactly what they’re upset about

Video game AI is taking away jobs from the tiny people who live in the TV

My love @chelebell sent me this, and the whole thing is gold.

My fellow elder millennials/xennials, have this perfect 4 minutes of comedy.

To any gen z-ers who see this, please listen to Iliza, we're with you, but our backs hurt and we're so tired.

If you fucks actually go through with not voting on your next USA president elections and subsequently lead Trump to power again.

Yes. Yes I'm going to blame every single American for that. Collective responsibility and all that jazz.

Explaining in simple terms: if you don't vote for Biden because "he is murdering palestinian babies", you will get Trump as a president, who, being an open and proud islamophobe, will murder even more palestinian babies.

It is no good situation when you have to choose between two shitty candidates. But you have a two-party system.

russia has previously aided trump during elections, and they will do so again. A call to boycott the elections = a call to support trump

You are in no position to afford the privilege of being idiots.

Also this.

Also, a lot of his goons have been filling a LOT of important spots in the military and civilian fields to have positions available for trump to fill in with his loyalists and to easier do a hostile takeover if he wins the election.

IF YOU DON'T VOTE FOR BIDEN YOU WILL GET A DICTATORSHIP BY TRUMP AND WE WILL ALL BE FUCKED

I don't know how many times we have to tell people to make everythingin their power to stop Trump from coming to power again. USA will be fucked. Ukraine will be fucked. Palestine would be fucked. We don't know how many other countries will be fucked.

Trump's presidency already gave cart blanche for the international far right rise, and I don't think we need to spell out to people that the state of the world today is directly credited to Trump's presidency, his incompetence, him being Russian puppet, etc etc.

As much as I am actually an opponent of the whole idea that USA is responsible of everything in the world, it does have a huge influence on international politics scene.

SO GO VOTE.

And since USA is a democracy, then, again, y'all are responsible for the president you elect.

Also, in 2016 Russia went hard on surreptitiously spreading propaganda to get people not to vote for Clinton. We already know that Russia is using bots to spread misinfo about the Israel-Gaza war. I don't think it's a coincidence that we are suddenly seeing tons of posts about how we shouldn't vote for Biden in 2024. You are not immune to propaganda.

People have the wrong idea about what propaganda is, and how it works.

They think that propaganda is basically brainwashing, having ideas you abhor forced into your head against your will A Clockwork Orange style, but that's not how it happens.

The most dangerous propaganda sounds 80% like what you already believe, and the last 20% gives you an obvious-seeming leading thought that gives you an excuse not to think.

"We need to pressure our politicians to protect Palestinians!"

Good, yes, agree with that

"...and therefore if you vote for democrats you're complicit in genocide."

And there's the thought-terminating cliche, designed to get you to behave in a way that's useful to the people writing the propaganda. In this case, not voting for left-wing candidates in upcoming elections out of a desire to punish them.

Its hard to stand up for your principles when you're pushed with an emotionally-charged attack designed to make you either look like a monster for wanting to think critically, or give in to groupthink and agree with the mob that says voting is stupid and pointless.

I'm starting to believe that the most important skill in the information age is knowing where your opinions come from. Did you come to that conclusion yourself? Or were you agreeing with a trusted friend? Or did an anonymous internet account shame you into going along with it for fear of being accused of supporting violence?

Every electoral system involves sorting the electorate--directly, or via their elected representatives--until a majority or a large enough plurality are able to agree with each other to form a working coalition.

In a parliamentary system this sorting takes place after the election, as parties that all represent a small portion of the electorate figure out who they can stand to work with, and who it's impossible to find any compromise with.

In a system with directly elected representatives, but a ranked choice ballot, this sorting takes place via the election itself--the ballot lets each voter decide who they are willing to be in coalition with and who they are not.

In a system like that of the U.S., which combines direct election of representatives with a winner-take-all ballot, this sorting happens BEFORE the election--like a game of Red Rover, two parties exchange voters on their fringes. Blocs of the electorate associate themselves with one party or the other.

This system--well, firstly, it sucks, I'll say that right away. But we're not going to be able to overhaul it by next November. But it also invariably leads, not just to a two-party system, but a two-party system where neither party is liked or trusted--not even by their own voters. This system DOES NOT CREATE CONDITIONS in which most voters are able to feel they are well-represented by either party. The parties are the results of trying to divide the entire electorate--every political position that every voter in the nation holds--into two parts that can agree with each other well enough to work together.

What this has always meant is that putting together a majority, for either party, means assembling an uneasy coalition of people with deep disagreements with each other.

WHAT THIS MEANS right now, when one party has openly espoused fascism, is that the other party takes in everyone who is not a fascist.

Whatever other--extremely valid!--disagreements they have.

The Republicans have made the 2024 elections a referendum on the question "Should the U.S. be a fascist dictatorship?"

The good news is that the set of "everyone who is not a fascist or enabling fascists" is larger than the set of fascists.

The bad news is that that set includes people who do not agree with you on literally anything else--and that structurally, until the fascists are driven out of public life, you and them are both stuck using the same party to try to advance your interests.

Everyone who believes in reality and doesn't want a fascist dictatorship is stuck in the same tent right now. And it's a big tent, and a crowded, loud tent with a lot of people I don't particularly like and some I despise, but there's a vicious rainstorm out there, and we're all going to have to work together to keep the tent from blowing over.

Of course you can and should criticize and complain to elected officials when they do things you believe are wrong. Arrange your own corner as you think is best. Just don't knock the tent over.

You don't have to like him and you don't have to support him any longer than it takes to prevent a Trump victory. If it makes you feel better, just think of Biden as a human speed bump you're sacrificing to stop a truck full of nazis.

Once someone who isn't a full blown fascist has been elected, we can go back to cussing out Biden for everything he does wrong (and oh boy is it a long list), and hopefully making sure the 2028 nominee won't be a spineless centre-right neolib.

voting for biden means genocide is not a deal breaker

😂

CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IN OUR COUNTRY ISNT A DEAL BREAKER EITHER FOR YALL?

Sorry do y’all fuckers remember when Trump put CHILDREN IN CAGES in EVERY CITY IN THE USA?

Or do you only care when crimes happen and a president is not directly responsible and not the one driving it himself?

No go ahead vote for a Republican instead.

You can watch a genocide happen here on US soil. Desantis has already gotten it started against trans people and Trump has proven he WILL put immigrants in cages for ethnic cleansing.

Let’s spin the wheel and see who gets hit next.

MIGHT BE YOU!

Don’t believe me???

This is the future the republicans are planning. And it wants you dead or in a camp you, to borrow some language from the eugenicists, cripple tranny mongrel heathen.

Vote Republican or Third Party and find out. We already lost abortion access, affirmative action, and non-discrimination protections!!

What else can you cost us!

I would like to point out that there is a time to vote for someone more in line with your own progressive values, someone who will stand up and do all the things you dream of a politician doing.

That time is called a primary and that time is right now. Not six months from now. Not next year. Not in every election after the next one. Right fucking now if you want it. Find a candidate and primary from the left.

Otherwise, the way the two-party first-past-the-post system works in the USA means that, in the current political climate, a vote third party or not voting at all means one of two things and one of these things only:

a) "I find either one an acceptable outcome and am perfectly fine with either option."

b) "I am fine with the status quo."

That's it. It is not a protest or a way to signal your displeasure to not vote. And given that one party has a significant fraction of people who want a war and slaughter in the Middle East because they quite literally believe it will bring about the end of the goddamn world, I don't think the two parties are quite as much the same as some of you might like to think they are.

Love making a one-off rabies post that randomly gets 14k in 3 days, being told "yes all of this is correct" by immunologists and vets and biologists, and getting "um, actually"d by people who have no idea what they're talking about

"um actually the CDC says rabies is uncommon and only affects 1-5% of mammals"

There are roughly 130 BILLION mammals and 1-5% of that is anywhere between 1.3 to 6.5 BILLION. If those were all humans that would be anywhere from 1/8 to 3/4 of the living human population at this exact moment.

Respectfully, y'all sound like the covid deniers saying 1% of the population isn't enough to give a shit about

I'm just gonna post a link to the This Podcast Will Kill You episode on rabies. Which includes fun numbers like the 2015 WHO estimate for annual deaths from rabies (59,000 per year. From a fully-preventable disease.)

Man but the notes on that post really are just tumblr showing they have no idea how anything works.

"report to your local animal abuse people not to cops" local animal abuse people would be animal control. Animal control officers are cops.

"rabies is treatable if you go to the doctor right after the bite" rabies is PREVENTABLE, not treatable. There is no cure for rabies. If you suspect you came into contact with a rabid animal, you need to get a series of rabies vaccinations to prevent the virus from taking over your body. This is not a treatment and it only works if you go right away. If you show any symptoms of rabies it is too late.

"rabies is fatal in animals but treatable in humans" rabies has a 100% fatality rate and is not considered a survivable disease at this point in time. If you contract rabies YOU WILL DIE. The "treatment" in humans is called the Milwaukee Protocol, only 14% of people survive it, and it leaves you with massive brain damage and effectively turns you into a vegetable. You do not return to a normal life afterwards. Very few people who have undergone this process are capable of doing more than laying in a hospital bed and eating and breathing through tubes. To my knowledge only one person was able to live a semi-normal life after years and years of ongoing therapy and was not expected to have made it even through her first year after treatment.

I cannot stress enough how rabies is unlike any other disease you may be thinking of. It's required on a federal level in this country to vaccinate pretty much any domestic animal that comes into contact with wildlife for one reason and one reason only: it is not considered possible to cure rabies and the spread of disease would threaten all mammalian life including our own if allowed to continue to propagate.

Didn't expect this post to blow up so much but to clarify:

Yes, some small town animal control folks aren't cops. However, they all work very closely with police when it comes to seizing animals from owners, issuing fines, etc. They might not technically have a gun and a badge in every city, but rest assured, they are still also technically a branch of law enforcement. The difference is splitting hairs imo.

What inspired this post were the notes on a different post about anti-vaxxers not wanting to vaccinate their dogs for rabies. Most of these notes were in agreement that anti-vaxxers are in the wrong. HOWEVER most of these notes also sorely sorely sorely misunderstood exactly how dangerous rabies is.

Unfortunately now this post has some of those same notes:

Rabies is not rare in the US. The only reason for anyone living here to think that is because they do not have a lot of contact with wild animals and do not work in vet medicine.

Yes, you are more likely to get rabies from a wild animal (bats, skunks, raccoons, and foxes are the most common) however when it comes to unvaccinated domesticated animals, dogs, cattle, and cats make up 90% of rabies cases. So yes, be very cautious about any bite or scratch from a stray dog or outdoor cat. The only reason it is less common for domesticated animals to spread it than wild animals is because rabies comes from contact with other rabid animals, so it is more likely that wild animals will have contact with rabies than domesticated which are typically hanging out with humans (which are, thankfully, largely not rabid). Dogs are the #1 rabies vector worldwide, it is only in countries with robust vaccination protocols and dog-owning culture that keeps them inside most of the time that the risk transfers mostly to bats. The majority of human rabies-related deaths are caused by bites from stray or outdoor dogs.

Animals who are suspected to have rabies are killed, decapitated, and their brains destroyed in the process of testing for rabies. There is no other way to test for rabies. "Nooooo the poor doggo :(" and "it's not the dog's fault the owner sucks" sure but consider: rabies testing requires biopsies of the brain and brain stem, aka punching holes in the tissue in order to examine the changes on a microscopic level. That's uh. Not survivable. There is no other way to detect rabies in an animal. It doesn't live in the bloodstream, it just uses it as a highway to zip up to the brain and then starts doing its thing. Even though it is spread via saliva, blood, and brain matter, we have yet to be able to reliably detect it in rabid animals in anything but the last. (it is detectable in the first two but only at the late stages, well after the animal has become infectious and when it is obvious to anyone who has seen a rabid animal before that the animal is rabid)

It is not required on a federal level for all domesticated animals to have a current rabies vaccine- unless said domesticated animal came into contact with a wild animal known to be a rabies vector, at which point the CDC gets to decide and not the individual state. To me this is a really stupid rule because imo all of the continental US and Alaska should be vaccinating for rabies (Hawai'i and other island nations we've colonized don't need to if they've wiped out rabies or never had it spread, though import laws are super strict in those areas on purpose as a result) and if the dog or cat has a fight with a wild animal or a Mysterious Bite Wound the owner's just gunna be told to vaccinate anyway except now they have a lengthy quarantine ahead of them so we might as well just do it in advance everywhere.

So I've gotten a couple of these based on this post and respectfully? I don't think you're understanding the severity of the damage rabies leaves behind, which is why the Milwaukee Protocol is not considered effective treatment.

29 people to date have survived the Milwaukee Protocol. Of those 29, 28 of them are still in their medically induced comas or in a similar vegetative state or have passed away due to other causes. There is brain activity, so they aren't braindead. The majority of them are not awake either and have not been for years and are not expected to ever wake up. They *might* dream, but they show no signs other than some mild activity on brain scans of being sentient anymore. It is debateable whether they are actually alive or if they are a step above braindead and teetering on the edge.

Of those 29 survivors, 1 of them was able to return to full conciousness. The fact that she survived by itself is nothing short of a miracle. The fact that she was capable of being more than a still body hooked to machines is a medical marvel. She is permenantly disabled. It took years- decades- of ongoing therapy after she woke up to get where she is now and she has spoken about how difficult the journey was and how lucky she is to not be like the remaining 28 survivors. Because that's what it came down to. Luck. She was never expected to survive let alone wake up.

This is also why rabies is not considered a survivable disease. The other 28 survivors are barely registering enough brain activity to be considered "alive". No motor functions, no higher thought, no communication, no voluntary muscle movement, no control over your background functions, no awareness of their surroundings, nothing. We keep them alive because of the very, very slight chance that they'll wake up and be able to be like Jeanna Giese. A few have woken, but none have shown the recovery she did. They have yet to be able to reproduce this success.

And- don't get me wrong, Jeanna is still disabled and shows many symptoms of extensive brain damage. She leans and lists to one side when she moves. Her speech is slow and slurred. She has trouble with overstimulation and with processing new stimuli. I have brain damage too- those are my symptoms as well. She is still considered to be capable of living a normal life, just like I can, as long as accessibility is an option.

Rabies is considered 100% fatal because Jeanna Giese is a fluke. And until we figure out why it worked for her and has yet to work for anyone else, she will continue to be considered a fluke. The closest anyone's gotten was a little girl who could move her fingers and blink voluntarily. They weren't able to communicate with her and she didn't recover further because she died from pneumonia she caught in the hospital that was treating her for rabies. There was also a little boy who woke but shortly after began to seize and eventually the seizures cooked the rest of his working brain. I do believe he is still alive but in that aforementioned vegetative state. Those who study the disease still consider Giese to be the only actual survivor.

This was Jeanna before she recovered. Of the other 28 survivors that are still alive, this is still the state they're in.

When I say you don't return to a normal life, this is what I mean. This is the rest of your life IF you survive the Milwaukee Protocol, which again, only has worked 14% of the time. Forever. You're not awake. You're not moving. You're not aware of anything. Your body is kept alive while doctors try to figure out why she woke up and you didn't. This is what "surviving rabies" looks like.

Why don't we get preventive vaccinations for rabies? Why are they only given to humans after being bit?

We do! People who are considered "high risk" for contact with rabid animals (vet staff, zoo staff, park rangers, wildlife biologists, etc) often are given preventative vaccination and this is seen as effective 99% of the time (with the 1% being when incomplete vaccination schedule occurs).

We are not vaccinated as a general population because it is expensive and painful- most of these people who are vaccinated as a preventative have their jobs pay for it, and it is relatively unpleasant in regards to side effects. In most cases, it is considered enough to teach humans not to touch or play with animals that they cannot confirm vaccine status.

In Jeanna's case, she was playing with a wild bat she'd caught. The little girl who died of pneumonia was bitten by a stray cat she grabbed. And I think the little boy was bitten by a stray dog that approached him. More than half of rabies cases in humans are children who were playing with unknown animals they managed to catch. It's important to note that there is "dumb rabies" and "rage rabies"- a rabid animal in the "dumb rabies" state is easily caught by children, and sometimes will even approach humans on its own. Children often love animals and are delighted to be approached by an animal or to be able to catch a previously-uncatchable animal (Jeanna still loves bats, after all) so the danger is only able to be mitigated by seriously teaching children how dangerous even "nice" wild animals can be.

Idk you’re not going to get anywhere in fighting for Palestine if you can only frame it as “white capitalists stealing land”, which ignores the high proportion of mizrahi Jews living in Israel and the fact that early Israeli settlers were by and large socialists

It’s easier to understand this like other types of European colonialism, but it’s truly not the same. And acknowledging jewish connection to the land DOES NOT mean you’re a Zionist.

Like, you can be (and should be) disgusted and disturbed by the israeli govt and Netanyahu and the IDF. But saying “they’re not indigenous to Palestine” honestly isn’t helpful. It’s not a question of “who does the land really belong to?”, it’s “who is being oppressed, brutalized, dehumanized, murdered, and displaced?” And the answer is the Palestinians.

If your solution involves millions of jews being asked to leave, that’s not a fucking solution. If your solution involves millions of Palestinians being evicted or killed, that’s also not a fucking solution.

wow now white people want to adopt Palestinian orphans like they are rescuing poor little exotic pets fuck white savourism fuck genocide Palestine will be free

That's literally a form of genocide btw:

-

Article 6 - Genocide

Genocide

For the purpose of this Statute, "genocide" means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

Takarazuka Revue is so funny because it’s like we are a fine upstanding institution of good family values, like homophobia. Please ignore the lesbians making up the majority of people both on stage and in the audience.

Takarazuka Revue is like: we enforce only the strictest gender roles in our troupe as is right and proper, sorting them into the two genders: women who are women, and women who are men. How dare you suggest there’s anything queer about that.

Takarazuka Revue is simultaneously the queerest thing and the least queer thing to ever exist. Takarazuka bucks tradition and is tradition incarnate. Takarazuka is like

and then is like, “no homo”

and maintains itself as one of the most hierarchical artistic organizations in the world with intense control over its performers. This alternate reality where the talented (and lucky, and connected) few can gain the right to openly perform queerness in the one setting comphet capitalism has carved out for them as long as they follow a different even stricter set of rules for dress and behavior. It dissembles traditional gender by its very existence and so must reinforce it at every turn.

And yet despite being the product of a conservative capitalist railroad owner who only really sought to exploit women for entertainment aimed at men (and their hetero families) that remains loyal to those deeply normative puritanical roots, it was and is also one of the most liberating theater and media experiences of queer Japanese people for decades. You can tell from all the queer art about it, by queer people. By the fact that the audience who flocked to it were not (cis) men.

Trying to untangle the mutual influence of shoujo manga to takarazuka is even more difficult that trying to untangle something like the history of modern Broadway and Disney movies. We wouldn’t have The Little Mermaid without Little Shop of Horrors, but we wouldn’t have Wicked without the Disney renaissance, but we wouldn’t have Frozen without Wicked, and going back further to things like Cinderella and Rogers and Hammerstein and they are intertwined but listen to me. Takarazuka and shoujo manga, especially yuri, are more intertwined. And then so much western media has been inspired by shoujo anime. Rose of Versailles the manga was inspired by Takarazuka and then in turn was adapted into their most famous play which then in turn influenced so many more artworks. Uranus and Neptune are an otokoyaku and musumeyaku. Utena and Anthy (and honestly that whole ass show. The stairs?? C’mon). And all the works and creators THOSE works inspired.

We owe so much to Takarazuka but also if we tried to thank them for their role in queer history they’d be like “we’ve never been queer in our lives!!!!!!!!” and then say a slur to your face while taking your money. Incredible. Wish more people knew what the fuck it was and I could get fansubs.

character: *isn’t 100% good or evil*

The Internet: hello naughty children it’s Discourse time

wapo really channeling the mcsweenys today

Give me an Ursa trilogy comic where she sets out on a journey to find Azula. Her name is supposed to mean “mama bear” right? Then fucking show us that. Show us this woman going absolutely feral at the idea of her daughter roaming around alone, with nobody around to catch her if she falls. Give me an Ursa who can acknowledge that she fucked up with Azula, and wants to make amends with her daughter and be a part of her life, and help her heal. Maybe Iroh tags along if he finds out about what Ursa is doing. As much as I hate Legacy Of The Fire Nation, the book has him admit that he feels guilt over not being there for Ozai and doing something, anything, to change his fate. If he can feel that for his brother, then what’s stopping him from feeling that for Azula, someone else that he failed spectacularly? Give this girl people who will be in her corner no matter what, people who will actually care about her.

You know the Grimm version of Snow White makes more sense than most versions if only because in that version Snow White was like 7 years old.

Like imagine you find a 7 year old in the woods and she’s like my mom is gonna kill me because I’m prettier than her and she’s not kidding. You know this queen is that sort of person. So you and your roommates adopt the kid and tell her don’t talk to strangers. And she keeps talking to strangers and getting poison combs stuck in her hair and whatnot.

Like yeah that’s kinda stupid but also she’s seven. She likes apples.

Also imagine it from the hunter’s perspective. The queen tells you this bitch is prettier than me I need you to take her out in the woods and kill her. And then you see who you’re supposed to kill and it’s a 2nd grader. Like how are you supposed to react to that sort of situation? Kill a human child? No. Because you’re not a brainless evil minion you’re just some guy dealing with a cartoonishly evil monarch. Of course you let her go.

Bad look for the Prince of course. Even if she did age while she was in that glass case. He saw a dead woman and just decided to keep her. And once she stopped being dead he was like we’re married now

He did cause the evil queen to dance to death in red hot shoes though. That was kinda cool.

With the acknowledgement that I'm grasping at straws, is it ever directly confirmed that the Prince wasn't also 7?

See, I think that still works.

You are the guardsman assigned to protect the eight-year-old Prince. You are currently in the middle of the forest because he absolutely had his heart set on "going hunting", and the royal second-grader should definitely not be traipsing around the woods on his own. You let him go a little on ahead and he comes running back talking about how there's a dead girl in the clearing and there's no-one else around and he wants to take her home because she's really pretty, Hans, and she's all alone!

You let him drag you to said clearing and okay, that is one angelic-looking dead child alright, and on the one hand the quality of her clothes and the craftsmanship on the coffin (who builds a see-through coffin?) speak to potential Consequences if you simply carry her off, but also for the amount of vines that have grown on the coffin she looks extraordinarily un-decayed, so you should probably get the court alchemist's opinion on that, and there's no way he's going to come all the way out here in his embroidered velvet curly-shoes. And also this kid is technically assigned by God as your natural superior, or something.

So fine. You hoist the coffin onto your shoulder (it's not like the Prince can do it. He's eight.) and head back toward the castle, Prince chattering blithely all the way. And then you turn your ankle on a rock and suddenly there's a thump and a cough and a lot of shouting from inside the coffin and you have now become a key player in a tense political incident with the next kingdom over.

You should probably ask for a raise.

We are in favor of just about any fairy tale ending with "you should probably ask for a raise."

The culprits (i would die for them)

C // Amythestsparkles • Hal Brindley

Yep, I’m on the side of these superb piggies. This is play stupid games, win stupid prizes territory.

Native wild animals engaging in natural animal behaviors?!?! I'm shocked!

Image by http://wryote.bsky.social

what a week huh?

happy one year anniversary to this clusterfuck of a week

happy 2nd anniversary to *waves vaguely*

Happy 3rd Anniversary to those who celebrate the tumblr high holy Week of November 3rd

Via @racethewind10