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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: October 22nd, 2023

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  • This is real. I’ve had folks in my cab that clearly were trying to probe my boundaries to see if I’m an easy target who immediately switched gears the moment I showed my personality. Just because someone is desperate doesn’t mean they want to fuck over someone who’s cool with them and is real. The way you carry yourself makes a difference.

    It’s pretty obvious if you meet me in person that I’m a broke artist who cares about real people and detests fake corporate bullshit. That’s not really an appealing target and I have fuck all to give them anyway.

    But if some fuck shoots me for being on their street while being trans, or literally just someone they don’t recognize, I don’t get the chance to show how I carry myself.






  • I mean, to me the meaning of that juxtaposition is pretty clear.

    The Gadsden flag highlights individual primacy, but the thin blue line sticker makes it clear that it’s his individual primacy that he’s concerned with. For an anti-authoritarian evoking that symbolism, the ‘me’ refers to the general autonomy of humanity or at least Americans, but in this case it probably literally refers to that specific individual’s autonomy or to the autonomy of the United States as a country in a nationalistic sense.

    He’s basically just representing his subculture and thumping his chest about how nobody better tell him what to do or get in his way, while also showing that he’s affiliated with a big gang. Whether he’s aware of the racist speech the symbol is referencing or the symbol’s deeper meaning is kind of up in the air, but it still probably wouldn’t produce much conflict with his sense of nationalist autonomy in an authoritarian context regardless.

    Honestly, it’s that context that I think makes the association with Punisher inevitable. Whether the character supports the current gang in charge or not, he clearly believes in an authoritarian model of crime and punishment; that’s the lens he views the world through and the impetus for his actions. If it’s satire, it certainly doesn’t read that way. Though, to be fair, the show is probably a lot more egregious in that regard than the comic (while also likely being more widely consumed).

    Frank Castle supports authoritarian measures so much that he goes beyond what the legal system allows for. He literally names himself after an action designed to reinforce authoritarian hierarchy. Sounds pretty on the nose to me.


  • I mean, obviously birth control is cheaper and easier for everyone, but that aside there should be as many as there needs to be. No one should have to carry a pregnancy to term against their will, and that shouldn’t be anyone else’s business or a political bargaining chip.

    Don’t get me wrong, I definitely think the stronger argument to sway those on the fence is to emphasize that better access to birth control decreases abortions and banning abortion doesn’t actually reduce the abortion rate, it just makes it more dangerous. But like, that’s not why I take that position. Personal bodily autonomy is plenty of reason in my book, and I don’t feel a particular need to try to bring the number of abortions down.

    But yeah, I’m sure it’s not a particularly fun medical procedure either.












  • I just want to, for a moment, shed some light on the mental disconnect here for Ms. Clifford.

    This is a person who literally ran CNBC’s climate change desk. She is, then, ostensibly aware of all the same information any of the rest of us have about climate change.

    And yet, she seems to think we can somehow have a world where everybody can casually fly to Istanbul or some other place they’ve never been every single year, and that’ll be sustainable. Or if she doesn’t think it’s sustainable, she’s still totally fine using her own financial position to do it anyway.

    If this is how people who actually focus their careers on climate change think, we’re pretty fucked.


  • Have you not seen like, housing projects? High rises? Run down old apartments? Everybody who doesn’t have the kind of money you do doesn’t live like they do anyway. Like, in terms of transportation, I spend my whole work day driving people around who don’t really have the money to spend on a cab but have the money to spend on a car even less.

    That doesn’t mean they manage to pretend they’re rich anyway, it means they make sacrifices you’ve probably never once in your life had to think about.

    When they do splurge to make themselves briefly comfortable, it’s at the cost of more sacrifices that you don’t have to deal with anymore if you ever did. And then they get to deal with people rolling their eyes about how financially irresponsible they are.

    Meanwhile the same people who make six figures are literally relying on people who make minimum wage in order to make their own lives convenient. And yet somehow that’s supposed to end up with everyone magically living like you?

    You live in a fantasy world. Not everybody has the time or the money to prioritize spending several hours cooking. Not everybody is left with enough energy by the end of their minimum wage no benefit grind of a day that you expect them to tolerate in order to sustain your hunger for little conveniences like places to go buy fresh food to cook for your family.