michaelthomasgrant

[michaelthomasgrant]

since mrs, ms, and mr are all descended from the latin word magister, i propose the gender neutral version should be mg, short for "mage"

[michaelthomasgrant]

Sometimes you gotta stop worrying about being the smartest and funniest person in the room and just enjoy being in a room with smart and funny people

[michaelthomasgrant]

also worth noting that "abusive" doesn't actually mean "irredeemable" either.

there's a lot of people that have done things in the past that were bad, because they weren't taught any better, or they were in an overall toxic situation where EVERYONE was shitty (like a cult), or they were just at an especially low point and hurt others for it.

you don't have to forgive them. you don't have to ever speak to them again. you can be angry with them until you die if you want.

but society cannot function if we don't allow them to move on. to change their behavior and fuck off somewhere else and build meaningful relationships without bothering you again. we need a path for people to change, or nothing ever will.

[michaelthomasgrant]

Imagine if half the country's infrastructure was built in a 30 year span and there was no plans to replace the aging infrastructure that is rapid approaching the end of its lifespan, wouldn't that be crazy

[michaelthomasgrant]

[michaelthomasgrant]

[michaelthomasgrant]

I love characters with tunnel vision. False dichotomies. The sunk cost fallacy. Characters who are convinced of their utmost rationality and can even lay out their entire philosophy in logical, impersonal terms and convince others even though the whole of their actions, rationalised to hell and back though they may be, are spurred on by something entirely emotional (and this doesn't stop them from being right on the money about some things). Characters who are at once the most and least self-aware people ever. Characters who know the ins and outs of their psyche like a map they've memorised but can barely tell when they're experiencing a feeling.

[michaelthomasgrant]

the fascist states of america when for once a significant number of people in it dares question why tax dollars consistently fund a genocide thats been going on thrice as long as youve been alive

[michaelthomasgrant]

[michaelthomasgrant]

things to say to bugs when science finally unlocks the secrets of human-bug communication:

im not hurting you i am taking you to a safe place

do you eat weird crumbs cause i found some im willing to share

you can bite me if you want but id rather be no-bite friends

i like your big colorful eyes, very stylish

please dont crawl into my sleeves

(sings a duet with a cricket)

[michaelthomasgrant]

Holy shit. The Israeli whistleblower story CNN just broke is insane. I cannot believe what I’m reading

[michaelthomasgrant]

[michaelthomasgrant]

the default way for things to taste is good. we know this because "tasty" means something tastes good. conversely, from the words "smelly" and "noisy" we can conclude that the default way for things to smell and sound is bad. interestingly there are no corresponding adjectives for the senses of sight and touch. the inescapable conclusion is that the most ordinary object possible is invisible and intangible, produces a hideous cacophony, smells terrible, but tastes delicious. and yet this description matches no object or phenomenon known to science or human experience. so what the fuck

[michaelthomasgrant]

I hate, hate, HATE the term “affordable housing.” I hate that we’ve normalized it. I hate that we just accept that the majority of housing, a basic human right, is unaffordable to much of the population. Housing should be affordable as a baseline. If rich people want to add arcades and gold-plated hot tubs on top so be it, but everyone, everyone, regardless of income level, should have access to a clean, comfortable home with enough light and space to make life worth living.

[michaelthomasgrant]

[michaelthomasgrant]

An incomplete list of things that employers commonly threaten that are 100% illegal in the United States

"We'll fire you if you tell others how much you're making" The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 specifically protects employees who discuss their own wages with each other (you can't reveal someone else's wages if you were given that information in the course of work, but you can always discuss your own or any that were revealed to you outside of work duties)

"If we can't fire you for [discussing wages/seeking reasonable accommodation/filing a discrimination complaint/etc], we'll just fire you for something else the next day." This is called pretextual termination, and it offers your employer almost no protection; if you are terminated shortly after taking a protected action such as wage discussion, complaints to regulatory agencies, or seeking a reasonable accommodation, you can force the burden onto your employer to prove that the termination wasn't retaliatory.

"Disparaging the company on social media is grounds for termination" Your right to discuss workplace conditions, compensation, and collective action carries over to online spaces, even public ones. If your employer says you aren't allowed to disparage the company online or discuss it at all, their social media policy is illegal. However, they can forbid releasing information that they're obligated to keep confidential such as personnel records, business plans, and customer information, so exercise care.

"If you unionize, we'll just shut this branch down and lay everyone off" Threatening to take action against a group that unionizes is illegal, full stop. If a company were to actually shut down a branch for unionizing, they would be fined very heavily by the NLRB and be opening themselves up to a class-action lawsuit by the former employees.

"We can have any rule we want, it's only illegal if we actually enforce it" Any workplace policy or rule that has a "chilling effect" on employees' willingness to exercise their rights is illegal, even if the employer never follows through on any of their threats.

"If you [protected action], we'll make sure you never work in this industry/city/etc again." Blacklisting of any kind is illegal in half the states in the US, and deliberately sabotaging someone's job search in retaliation for a protected action is illegal everywhere in the US.

"Step out of line and you can kiss your retirement fund/last paycheck goodbye." Your employer can never refuse to give you your paycheck, even if you've been fired. Nor can they keep money that you invested in a retirement savings account, and they can only claw back the money they invested in the retirement account under very specific circumstances.

"We'll deny that you ever worked here" not actually possible unless they haven't been paying their share of employment taxes or forwarding your withheld tax to the government (in which case they're guilty of far more serious crimes, and you might stand to gain something by turning them in to the IRS.) The records of your employment exist in state and federal tax data, and short of a heist that would put Oceans 11 to shame, there's nothing they can do about that.

[michaelthomasgrant]

Eurovision is the absolute easiest thing in the world to boycott. It's not food owned by one of 5 food conglomerates. It's not tech that corporations have made essential. There's no "support the devs" logic to be even considered. It's literally just noise that is forgotten in a week.

This year it's noise that will be forgotten in a week that is actively supporting one state that's committing genocide to another state they're actively suppressing any discussion about.