elevenbenevolentmammoths

[elevenbenevolentmammoths]

[elevenbenevolentmammoths]

I'm just going to leave this here, because this woman said what I've been trying to articulate for ages much more effectively and succinctly than I've been able to

[elevenbenevolentmammoths]

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

[elevenbenevolentmammoths]

i think that one of the bigger stumbling blocks to white trans women being more knowledgable about transmisogynoir and racialized transmisogyny is that they don't often read theory by cis women of color, with the apparent assumption that their cisness precludes them from having insight that would be relevant to trans women.

this is obviously a mistake, as the writing of women of color has relevance to literally all women, but the hesitation because of the transmisogyny present in the feminist movement and many feminist theorists is understandable.

(i would like to make a tangent here and point out that woc have also been extensively critical of the failures of feminism, to the point where Black women invented womanism and chicanas sometimes identify as mujeristas instead of feminists.)

however, this ignores that the platonic ideal of womanhood, the meter which is used to police all women, is that of /white/ cis womanhood.

like trans women, cis women of color are often stereotyped as being more aggressive, angrier, and more masculine than white cis women. their bodies are also considered insuffiently female, which is most often and most vocally expressed in misogynoir.

cis women of color have historically been forced into a variety of kinds of heavy manual labor, with the "justification" that their biology makes them well suited to it.

this can, and should, be a site of building solidarity. together we can combat this prejudice and the laws created using it much better than we can separately.

i recommend listening to angela davis' recent (that is to say, within the last decade) lectures in order to better understand connections between the racism that cis woc face and the transmisogyny white trans women face. i think that angela davis is by far the staunchest supporter of trans rights out of any foundational feminist.

[elevenbenevolentmammoths]

i feel like we don’t talk about things like this enough

[elevenbenevolentmammoths]

Today is a big day on the Spanish internet. Valentine's day in Spanish is "día de San Valentín", which sounds almost the same as "Sam va lentín", which is how, in some parts of Spain , you would say "Sam goes slowly".

Hence, since a few years ago, every February 14th, the Spanish internet is full of "wait for me mr. Frodo" style memes. One of our holiest days of the year.

[elevenbenevolentmammoths]

its so unfortunate when different peoples neurodivergent traits clash horribly. like yes i totally understand that the man at the other table cant control his stimming and loud vocal tics and i think he deserves to have a nice day out at a restaraunt without judgement. however if i dont remove myself from the audible vicinity in the next 20 seconds i will explode.

[elevenbenevolentmammoths]

every time i see trad gender roles people being weird about fibercraft i wanna tell them

-medieval and early modern knitting guilds were full of men learning and perfecting fancy knitting techniques to impress rich clients

-in cold, wet climates like the scottish highlands knitting was done by the whole family, in fact it was the perfect activity to do while a man was out on a fishing boat or in the pasture with his sheep and cattle

-men who were away from women for a long time had to know how to knit and sew at least well enough to mend their own clothes. soldiers knitted. sailors knitted. cowboys and frontiersmen knitted. vikings probably knitted (actually they would have been doing a kind of proto knitting called nalbinding, but that's beside the point). all those guys the far right love to treat as ultra masculine heroes were sitting around their barracks and campfires at night darning their socks and knitting themselves little hats

[elevenbenevolentmammoths]

[elevenbenevolentmammoths]

[elevenbenevolentmammoths]

obsessed

[elevenbenevolentmammoths]

There are only two mental illnesses according to people on the internet:

Innocent bean syndrome: You can never do wrong and got no agency. You will be infantilized on every occasion and are treated as a quirk.

Bad person syndrome: You are bad and an abuser. Your presence kills people.

[elevenbenevolentmammoths]

stop i NEED that pic of the boy who took his cat to prom and she has a lil dress and is looking up at him with 100% love and tenderness……..

[elevenbenevolentmammoths]

source

[elevenbenevolentmammoths]

I low-key love the fact that sci-fi has so conditioned us to expect to be hanging out with a bunch of cool space aliens, that legitimate, actual scientists keep proposing the most bizarre, three-blunts-into-the-rotation "theories" to explain the fact we're not.

Some of my favourites include:

Zoo Theory: What if there are loads of aliens out there, but they're not talking to us because of the Prime Directive from Star Trek? (Or because they're doing experiments on us???)

Dark Forest Theory: What if there are loads of aliens out there, but they all hate us and each other so they're all just waiting with a shotgun pointed at the door, ready to open fire on anything that moves?

Planetarium Theory: What if there's at least one alien with mastery over light and matter that's just making it seem to us that the universe is empty to us as, like, a joke?

Berserker Theory: What if there were loads of aliens, but one of them made infinite killer robots that murdered everyone and are coming for us next?!!

Like, the universe is at least 13,700,000,000 years old and 46,000,000,000 light years big. We have had the ability to transmit and receive signals for, what, 100 years, and our signals have so far travelled 200 light years?

The fact is biological life almost certainly has, does, or will develop elsewhere in the universe, and it's not impossible that a tiny amount of it has, does, or will develop in a way that we would understand as "intelligent". But, like, we're realistically never going to know because of the scale of the things involved.

So I'm proposing my own hypothesis. I call it the "Fool in a Field" hypothesis. It goes like this:

Humanity is a guy standing in the middle of a field at midnight. It's pitch black, he can't move, and he's been standing there for ages. He's just had the thought to swing his arms. He swings one of his arms, once, and does not hit another person. "Oh no!" He says. "Robots have killed them all!"

[elevenbenevolentmammoths]

Shout out to this Korean actor's Wikipedia page, which is one sentence long, but includes a dozen citations proving he's Korean and an actor

#[excessive citations]

[elevenbenevolentmammoths]

Static electricity 😂😂