#which is objectively false

[bidisasterforzutara]

Man, looking at the zutara tag reminded me why I don’t engage with it here on tumblr anymore

#like jesus christ #it’s the same old paragraphs ab how robbed we were #and how we’re not ‘’canon’’ so we’re worthless #which is objectively false #like…don’t y’all get tired of being depressed #instead of sharing fan art/stories we continue to be fucking miserable #disappointed but not surprised #and anti posts continue to show up I see #fuck tumblr #no wonder I just reblog my shoujo couples now #I’ll never forgive y’all for calling me delusional when I called them canon btw #that’s something I still stand by

[sleepnoises]

The boat bed you reblogged is AI, every "photo" on that person's account is ai generated :/

ah well. we can dream

#good to know about that account #i see someone has gone back and deleted their reblog of it. i will not be doing that because my objections to AI art are #1) fake photos blur ''real'' and ''false'' in a way i don't like 2) environmental cost 3) ugly #none of which are go back and delete level sins for me. though the former mandates clarification

[pseudophan]

What does he mean more than 3 people in our house???? Like, is it a phrase or does someone else live with Dan and Phil???? Explain yourself!

lol i think he meant three people apart from the two of them. as in usually if they have people over it's rarely more than three but on new years they had more of a proper gathering

#or if he's trying to be haha funny he means they rarely have anyone over apart from like one friend #which would make them three people #which is objectively false however would be on brand #answered

[kenobihater]

you ever write up a combination of words you're really proud of at the time bc you think it's vivid but it's actually so atrocious that you remember it eight years later bc it's burned itself into your long-term memory? just me?

#i'm literally laughing my entire ass off rn. i can't believe i found this fic i wrote at 15 and orphaned when i came to my senses abt both #my complete inability and total aversion to writing first person as well as the fact that the english language should never have been #subjected to its words being done dirty like this 😭 #also i straight up fucking LIED in the authors note??? i said i'd broken my knee as a kid which is categorically false. i fell down some #stairs and banged it up and it's a tiny bit weak ig but i didn't break it? all any teens born after y2k know is eat hot chip and lie... #still not over the first line... the flip flop bit i remembered but i'd COMPLETELY forgotten 'a shriek seeped out of my throat'. girl. what. #how does a shriek seep exactly? the world may never know... #and the use of 'groped' is also sending me 😭 AND 'crash bash whump thump' girlllll send help holy shit i can't stop coughing & laughing #the rest of the fic isn't quite this bad but it's very purple yet ineloquent and rough. it's a good reminder of how much i've improved and #honestly i'd rather read this utterly amature fic bc it's at least charming in its lack of skill rather than infuriating like some of my #oneshots that are still on my page bc they're more comprehensible but just bad enough to make me cringe. getting mad at this oneshot would #be like getting bad at a kid's stick figure drawing. like. it's just kinda cute to see someone starting out on their creative journey #my old sw oneshots on the other hand are like the awkward growing pains of puberty. you just can't help but wince at the reminder #this is okay to reblog btw bc it's objectively hilarious and i don't mind ppl finding humor in it #len speaks

[sendmyresignation]

really love alternating between girls to the front and listening to washed up emo episodes. to me it so clearly demonstrates a lot of the friction btw the nebulous diy posthardcore/pre-midwest emo conglomerate and riot grrl is often a matter of like. basic difference in musical ideology and subculture values lmao. like. this guy from art monk was talking about how some of his friends bands have been forgotten because a lot of the scene was v. humble and believed in letting the music speak for itself which imo fits with a lot of women in these bands who talk about wanting to be seen as "serious artists" not bc women arent "serious" but rather its emblematic of the type of band/music relationality they want to embody. like. the women in these scenes, to varying degrees, certainly interacted and invested in the same values as their peers- its weird to imagine just bc they are women that (1) they all should think the same and (2) they all felt inherently isolated from their communities??

#we can have a discussion about if these women were successful at being taken seriously and such for sure #but to me it has a lot more to do with diy ethics than like. antifeminist false post-genderism like marcus implies #and every subculture and scenes values are like. they have pros and cons obv but there is no CORRECT choice ultimately #its v frustrating that the limitations of the olympia anyone can play music! perspective is like never interrogated #(bc personally im sooo completely uninterested in that music rhetoric even if i can objectively see its value) #man i wonder how many shitty art school dudes felt emboldened by the k records bullshit.... #not to mention how much of that music imo has little longevity (again. fine! the ephemeral nature of creation is beautiful! not for me) #anyway i love washed up emo bc tom loovvess jimmy eat world but i can so tell he probably hates mcr. so funny. #hes the guy who compares third wave to glam metal. which i think is fun but is clearly meant as a sort of criticism of its commercial nature #but again. jimmy is his favorite band so like. i do have to chuckle. same way i feel sometimes about dan ozzi. what was the line. #my posts

[wonder-worker]

"The feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist being appointed as the day upon which the coronation of the king [Edward V] would take place without fail, all both hoped for and expected a season of prosperity for the kingdom."

-Excerpt from the Croyland Continuator / David Horspool, "Richard III: A Ruler and Reputation"

Even though Edward IV’s death was unexpected, after twelve years of peace there need not have been too much of a sense of foreboding about the succession. The great dynastic wound from which the Wars of the Roses had grown had not so much been healed as cauterized by the extinction of the House of Lancaster. There was no rush for London, as had happened in earlier, disputed successions. The royal party didn’t set out from Ludlow for ten days after hearing the news of Edward IV’s death, while Richard took his time, too. And the new king had [his mother the dowager queen and] two uncles to support him: his mother’s brother, the sophisticated, cultured, highly experienced Earl Rivers; and his father’s, the loyal and reliable Duke of Gloucester, to whom Edward IV had entrusted unprecedented power and vital military command.

... [Richard of Gloucester] had achieved his goal by a mixture of luck and ruthlessness, and if he made it appear, or even believed himself, that destiny played a part, this only made him a man in step with his times. Modern historians have no time for destiny, but sometimes the more ‘structuralist’ interpretations of the events surrounding the usurpation can come close to it. When we read that ‘the chances of preserving an unchallenged succession were . . . weakened by the estrangement of many of the rank-and-file nobility from . . . high politics, which was partly a consequence of the Wars of the Roses and partly of Edward IV’s own policies’, it is hard not to conclude that an unforeseeable turn of events is being recast as a predictable one. But without one overriding factor – the actions of Richard, Duke of Gloucester after he took the decision to make himself King Richard III – none of this could have happened. That is, when the same author concedes ‘Nor can we discount Richard’s own forceful character’, he is pitching it rather low*.

Edward IV had not left behind a factional fault line waiting to be shaken apart. Richard of Gloucester’s decision to usurp was a political earthquake that could not have been forecast on 9 April, when Edward died. After all, Simon Stallworth did not even anticipate it on 21 June, the day before Richard went public. We should be wary of allowing hindsight to give us more clairvoyance than the well-informed contemporary who had no idea ‘what schall happyne’. This is not to argue that Richard’s will alone allowed him to take the Crown. Clearly, the circumstances of a minority, the existence of powerful magnates with access to private forces, and the reasonably recent examples of resorts to violence and deposition of kings, made Richard’s path a more conceivable one. But Richard’s own tactics, his arrest of Rivers, Vaughan and Grey, the rounding up of Hastings and the bishops, relied on surprise. If men as close as these to the workings of high politics at a delicate juncture had no inkling of what might happen, the least historians can do is to reflect that uncertainty [...].

(*The author who Horspool is referencing and disagreeing with is Charles Ross)

#wars of the roses #edward v #richard iii #edward iv #my post #I'm writing a post on this topic but I have no idea when I'll finish it so I figured I should post Horspool's epic analysis #or should I say epic takedown? <3 #friendly reminder that Richard's usurpation happened primarily and decidedly because of Richard's own decisions and actions #we need to stop downplaying his singular agency and accountability by casting the blame on others #most of all Elizabeth Woodville and her family but also the bizarre interpretation of historians like Ross and Pollard (et al) #who somehow hold Edward more responsible (through a 'structuralist' view as Horspool says) even though that literally makes no sense #also friendly reminder that actual contemporaries did not view Edward V's minority as a sign of worry and potential discontent #quite the opposite - they expected him to have a prosperous reign. which made sense since Edward IV left his son a far more stable #country than any former minor king (and most other adult kings tbh). The irony is that it was his son's usurper who benefitted from it. #also I added Elizabeth Woodville to the list because Edward V himself specifically said that he trusted the governance of the country #'to the peers of the realm and the queen' as quoted by Mancini (likely relayed to him by John Argentine) #and this is supported by evidence. After Edward's death the Croyland Continuator substitutes Elizabeth's role in the council #for that of the King: 'the counsellors of the king now deceased were present with the queen' #we know Elizabeth presided over all the council's decisions and initiated proposals (the size of her son's military escort) on her own #She was clearly the one with the most authority in the council (who were described as being present with *her* not anyone else) #Hastings made demands but he couldn't enforce them at all (and was in fact worried). It was clearly Elizabeth who had that power. #She was likely going to play a very prominent role during her son's minority and imo it's problematic to assume otherwise #(Lynda Pidgeon assumes otherwise but she's based her assumption on objectively false information so I don't think we should take her #seriously)(see: she claims that EW lacked influence compared to her male relatives in royal councils when EW HERSELF WAS IN ROYAL COUNCILS) #That's not to go too far the other direction and claim EW tried to dominate and tactlessly exclude others - we know she didn't #The impression we get by this first council and by Richard's own actions indicates that she Richard and Anthony would likely #work *together* when it came to governing the realm #I do find it frustrating when people disregard the fact that based on the impression we have she would've had a very visible #and powerful role

[mademoisellesarcasme]

someone yell at me i just started my new editing project and am immediately beset with conviction that i am not actually good at this (i am actually very good at it)

#it's something about the first few chapters that makes me feel like i only understand details and not grand scale #which is objectively false but sort of the experience of coming into a new story

[singwhenyoucantspeak]

inflammatory headlines that imply something that is not true should be illegal. i dont care if the article itself sets the record straight. that is dishonest and irresponsible journalism.

#like sure this is important because lots of people dont read past the headline #but it also creates an emptional manipulation #that then completely changes the lense through which people are reading the article #so even if they read the whole thing and objectively understand that what the headline implied was false #their emotional response to it is already engrained and THAT is what they will remember about it! #its fucking damaging to readers perceptions of the facts!

[cruelsister-moved2]

this is why i advocate philosophy and whimsy for the bairns because its so important to get comfortable with being like wow this question is unanswerable and YET i must decide on a working answer in order to hesitantly proceed in the way that feels most practicable. idk the part of your brain that allows you to do that is underdeveloped in social media users i fear

#same w the way everyone is expected to respond to every single global conflict too ngl #you have to find a way to be like i cant possibly understand this objectively or accurately #but i have to respond to it in some kind of way #i have to hold to the absolutes i can find (ie killing civilians is wrong and should be stopped) #without creating false ones to stabilise myself (ie #trying to come up with a Solution which is..usually US intervention)

[nanoa1foryou]

I posted 3,714 times in 2022

That's 3,714 more posts than 2021!

1,290 posts created (35%)

2,424 posts reblogged (65%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@glamorousdrama

@leopardom

@torillatavataan

I tagged 3,555 of my posts in 2022

Only 4% of my posts had no tags

#blind channel - 785 posts

#mcc - 310 posts

#esc - 283 posts

#eurovision - 279 posts

#mc championship - 272 posts

#esc 2022 - 271 posts

#eurovision song contest - 244 posts

#suomitumppu - 240 posts

#nanoa1 speaks - 231 posts

#olli matela - 216 posts

Longest Tag: 136 characters

#electrica callboy should be well enough known on it’s own that you writers don’t need to do the whole thing with titles instead of names

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Was anyone gonna tell me that Disney once lost a multi million dollar mural, or was I supposed to learn that from Defunctland tweet on my own???

572 notes - Posted July 2, 2022

#4

I love the recurring theme of forgiveness in Markiplier's production. Wilford admits that apologies help others heal. Old Mark forgives the Captain despite not knowing what the Captain actually did wrong. Yancy doesn't hold it against us that we want to be free.

There is just something so grounding about such a human action in the middle of such chaotic events. That despite all that these characters go through, they move on and keep going. That they get the chance to heal and let others do the same. That despite all the poor decisions the story doesn't condemn us, but let's us learn and grow.

The story doesn't shut us out of it. It tells us that no matter how bad our decisions were and no matter what mistakes we made, we deserve to keep going. I don't think any choice makes us the viewer feel as important to the story than the fact that the characters seek to understand and move on from our decisions.

Also it is just so well written. It doesn't feel like they just say it, no they also show it. There is no bad blood after forgiveness.

987 notes - Posted June 6, 2022

#3

So Latvia can’t say pussy but the host can wear that green screen suit??

1,089 notes - Posted May 15, 2022

#2

Every post I see about Technoblade’s dad is just something so heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time.

I’m glad he found the community. I’m glad the community loves him.

”I love you because you loved him”

It really goes both ways.

1,259 notes - Posted October 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

"The world had to move around Techno. He was the immovable object."

-Wilbur Soot

1,396 notes - Posted July 2, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #false #tumblr2022 #year in review #yeah that is a pretty good description of my posting #techno truly deserves that number 1 spot he was the immovable object #also majority of my tags are liveblogging tags which makes sense #and heyy guess the real blorbo from my shows was olli #nanoa1 speaks

[kingofmyborrowedheart]

I’m sorry, but you simply cannot deny the impact that 1989 had on society.

#taylor swift #1989 #like it helped put forth a retro sound that’s still being heard today #there’s not really been another pop era like it in recent years #like 2014-2015 was a wild time for her in regards to her relationship to the gp #can’t wait for 1989 tv to remind everyone of that time #was reading through a transcript of a podcast and saw someone call it ‘a blight on pop music’ which is objectively false #probably not going to listen to that podcast in the future #got an ick listening to an ep where one of the hosts wanted Harry to disclose his sexuality like that’s nobody’s business

[emcads]

i have a post cooking in my brain about how jack’s own reckoning with ‘no good deed goes unpunished’ is a reflection of a the larger theme in the series wherein acts of mercy and grace lead to your own downfall.

#just off the top of my head would be james giving jack the head start (fall from grace) and freeing elizabeth + crew (death) #bootstrap objecting to the mutiny and being sent to the bottom of the sea #will shackled with an eternity of servitude (which is a funny one bc that's really jack's act of mercy not his) #piracy being the selfish individualist path is a false screen in the trilogy imo. it's applicable to barbossa's cotbp crew more than anyone #and they were punished severely for it to the point where they lost every remnant of humanity #gov swann's act of clemency IS the piratical path at the end of cotbp. and it's james' selfishness in dmc that redeems him to society in dmc #they betray one another in awe IN ORDER TO endear themselves to the societal powers of the eitc #hhh i'm thinking of a post where like 'we're all going to die soon and the world is shit so might as well be kind to each other and enjoy #our lives.' which. sums up potc's perspective on piracy i think. faced with the noose - how do you act in response? #are you willing to die for honor or for love or for freedom OR die when the oppressors have grown tired of you and your betrayals failed to #endear yourself ENOUGH when they'd rather see you dead anyway #✘; I HAVE SEVENTY TWO EXAMS AND I HAVE NOT STUDIED FOR ONE ( ooc )

[drewsaturday]

thinking about this site + fact checking (with the disclaimer i'm talking about fact checking being hard, but you're still responsible for trying to not spread misinfo)

i have such a weird relationship to fact-checking on this website because in the past i was only on here to whine about my life so i didn't kill myself, so i wasn't really in the proper mindset to care if i was spreading (non-harmful) misinformation. it's cool if people told me i was, but also if you're following a blog where a teenager posts every 5 minutes that they want to die in detail, you should assume they don't have the energy to fact check everything they put on your dash... or even the bandwidth to care to be perfectly honest.

i also did used to have a mindset of automatically not trusting most things, but knowing that if i were going to put it in an essay or tell someone that information independent of the source, i would look into it more... so to me it wasn't the end of the world if i DID reblog misinfo; though of course looking back, i'm sure my reblog was one piece of a chain where lots of people who don't see it that way were misinformed -> more misinformation. (and of course, i'm sure memories are weird and i did probably end up losing track of what i did/didn't vet, and spread misinfo in conversation, or have it impact my beliefs in some way.)

misinformation is bad and ideally everyone would fact check, or at least try to, before hitting the silly little reblog button. being mentally ill or having other priorities doesn't exactly absolve you from spreading misinformation.

i just think like... some people are on here for social justice info and therefore their blog will have more of a reputation for correct information. other people are just here to reblog pretty pastel pictures and if they can reblog an article they thought would be helping people with a quick button tap, well-intentioned, they're probably not in the most critical mindset.

in that latter case i just wonder what the alternatives are for the well-meaning lower-effort crowd. i guess the solution is probably to just not reblog articles you're not sure about!! because even if you assume the ppl following you will think critically about it before putting it into their belief system, they'll be reblogging to people who may not.

personally i put a disclaimer on things i haven't read or fact checked, but i do still want to reblog to save them for later since they get lost if i use my drafts for that purpose.

and of course, having different expectations as a consumer knowing that you're on social media where none of us are claiming to be experts on a thing we're reblogging information about, does help. there are some blogs dedicated to fact checking or dedicated to their particular area of study so you can have more trust in them if your braincells are dwindling that day, even though no one's perfect.

idk. it really is such a weird time for social media to be this huge mix of different things. i do try not to reblog news stuff on here because for me tumblr is my shutting-my-brain-off website, so i do take that approach (not reblogging things i'm not in a mindset to look into). it just also then sucks that i absolve myself from the responsibility to current events by doing that to an extent; though i do try to look into these things elsewhere when i can.

it's weird and i guess there are levels to it, where you shouldn't be discouraged from trying to spread helpful information because one tiny fact may be flawed in it, as long as you can be certain most of it is fine ??? but to me i just wonder if my approach these days is a net positive or a net negative, and it would probably swing wildly back and forth if i did reblog every little article i saw w/o critical thought.

and i'm out of braincells to force any more thoughts on this out in a meaningful way.

#txt #suicide tw #im normal now and also not a teenager which helps j;lsdflkjsd #also i do think personally. the pressure i put on myself for when i do write an essay to fact check every tiny tiny claim i make #makes me hyper aware of what a Fact is #and when that Fact then has the potential to be fake #if that makes any sense?? #like differentiating something that is an opinion vs. something that has objective true/false properties #which then means every time i see anything interesting i have to draft it or put a disclaimer on it #and i am just thinkin gabout this topic more bc i am finding myself tossing SO much in the drafts these days #to look more into later #that it's rly becoming.... noticeable........

[enochianspells]

being a history graduate is insane because why are you, a man who barely graduated high school fifty years ago, fighting me over something i have read a seven hundred pages book about

#i know history is the mansplaining subject among the humanities but god have some self-respect #this is about me trying to correct my stepdad about spartan history false myths and he was so upset by me correcting him that he compared #what i sad with people saying fascists did good things too and then went on a rant about that. which is something he is objectively #knowledgeable about but really not the point of the discussion. the patience that i have #txt.alice

[grison-in-space]

golly, I am being wordy today.

Via Metafilter:

Someone on MeFi tagged me in and asked me to chime in in my capacity as a rodent person, so here were my thoughts and observations:

First thought, looking at that video: that is no house mouse. Not only is the head wrong--too narrow at the back, eyes are a bit big--but that very clear countershading is not something you generally see on wild house mice. So what kind of mouse is it? If this was in the US, I would assume it was a Peromyscus (deer mouse) species, which often gleefully invade our homes, but do they have Peromyscus in Wales? In North America, this is relevant because deer mouse species often have very elaborated burrowing and pair bonding systems, and this looks like nesting behavior off the top of my head. What sort of mouse is this? The Woodland UK Trust suggests that this is probably a wood (or field) mouse: Apodemus sylvaticus. (There are glorious big photos there which can help you see what I mean.) Okay, I don't know that much about Apodemus spp. behavior, so what do we know about their nesting behavior? Well, I chased a couple of false leads, then circled back to find out what is notable about wood mice, which is that they are known to not only navigate by the use of landmarks, but to organize their environments to place small objects around their environments in order to make navigation and orienting themselves across their large territories more effectively! So this mouse is probably irritably putting things back in place as an aid to its own memory of where everything is and where it can most effectively pilfer snacks, nest locations, or other useful mouse items within its environment. That is, the mouse wants a tidy shed for exactly the same reasons a human might want a tidy shed: so it can find things it's looking for when it wants to! Wood mice, by the way, are human commensals and quite common in Europe and the British Isles, so this is in no way a refutation of the idea that this behavior might have influenced human folklore and ideas about house spirits or similar. Certainly wood mice, like any mouse, are unlikely to turn up a bowl of milk if there's one put out for it--although neither are house cats, which would certainly prey on them.

rather delighted, so I'm sharing this more widely over here.

#mouse work #wild mice #animal behavior #apodemus sylvaticus #behavioral ecology

[headspace-hotel]

It's important to not force your human morals onto non-human nature, like "this creature, since it disgusts me, is bad" or "this creature, since it has behaviors I interpret as sweet and heartwarming, is good"

But if you study nature whether in life or in profession, nature will make you feel disgusted and uncomfortable, it's not necessary to act as if those feelings don't exist within you, because they are part of your encounter with the otherness of nature, and contain sensitivities that can be sharpened into their own ingredient to knowledge and awareness

Coexisting with discomforting parts of the reality of Nature without trying to resolve them into a moral or aesthetic framework you are happy with, reflects maturity

It is no good to "redeem" a hated animal if the redemption is another false idea of the animal as innocent and good. This implies that a creature's "goodness" is a valid reason it deserves existence. It is also no good to treat a beloved animal with hatred to make things fair.

A good example is with dolphins and sharks, dolphins were seen as good and cute and almost human, whereas sharks were seen as bloodthirsty killers, and this has cost the lives of sharks while dolphins are given more sympathy, so some people have tried to turn it around, portraying sharks as gentle and good while pointing out that dolphins can be violent and rape other dolphins.

A lot of dolphin behaviors are certainly upsetting, definitely it makes sense to be upset that an animal can engage in what appears like cruelty, but human morality isn't made to apply to non- humans, and a particular behavior is not the entire reality of what a whole species is like. Dolphins also engage in behaviors that humans judge as friendly, compassionate, altruistic, curious and playful

Think of a particular dog or cat and the variety of complex behaviors they are capable of—an entire species, made of individuals with their own complexity, must be far more complex. All of your emotional responses to dolphins are recognizing the immense complexity of these animals and how they are both like and unlike you, which is important to think about to expand your understanding of the universe

Fitting a creature to a flat framework for your own comfort or internal resolution is a disrespect to the creature. Certainly with sharks, everyone should know the facts about them rather than sensationalistic misinformation—shark attacks are rare, humans are not a preferred food for sharks, and most shark bites are exploratory investigations of a strange object or animal rather than feeding upon a selected prey item, however this doesn't mean sharks are "good" by human standards and it certainly doesn't mean sharks are "safe."

Seeing a video of an enormous Great White swimming placidly I feel that her presence is not just breathtakingly beautiful, but awesome—in the more archaic sense of something that inspires awe, something so great and powerful it could destroy your fragile human life without malicious intent. Likewise with any shark, it is respectful to recognize that they can be dangerous, it is disrespectful to think of them as ocean puppies and try to touch them and grab them.

Fear, disgust, anger—each is an instinct that functions to protect you and is reactive towards potential or perceived threats. Your brain allows you to evaluate things that cause these responses and choose how to act.

All parts of this whole are important because the natural world contains actual threats but knowledge and intentional behavior are important to protecting yourself.

For example, once when I found a tick crawling on my clothing, I felt disgusted and startled, which is appropriate, but my instinctive reaction was to immediately flick the tick off, flinging it onto the floor or furniture nearby where I no longer knew where it was. In this way my response didn't actually protect me but instead increased the level of risk

There are plenty of other examples—if someone sees a venomous snake they might think it is important to kill it, but trying to kill the snake is much more dangerous than leaving it alone, since the snake will try to defend itself. Spraying pesticides to kill bugs can unbalance the ecosystem causing more harmful pests than you started with because the natural predators are also killed. Using poisons to kill mice and rats will also poison their natural predators. Killing coyotes just causes them to disperse and reproduce at a higher rate, and killing wolves causes overpopulation of prey, which causes disease to proliferate and forests to be stripped bare of saplings that could grow up and regenerate the forest...

...And it also works the opposite way with human responses of affection, love and sociability: humans often may feel that they want to make an animal their friend, but often it would be cruel to take that animal into a human house and treat it as a pet. White-tailed deer may seem cute and sympathetic but hunting some of them is important for the health of the ecosystem, and trying to make them tame puts the deer and the humans in danger. Domestic cats are our friends but they are also invasive species in much of the world, destroying populations of birds, mammals and amphibians.

Domestic cats aren't serial killers or murderers either, they are just predatory animals that instinctively hunt and kill prey.

It is hard for facts about animals to be propagated while those facts must be presented as reasons the animal deserves to live or deserves to die. Virginia opossums are important to their ecosystem and deserve to exist. They also don't actually eat ticks, that came from a very flawed and sloppy scientific study that was contradicted by later studies, and sadly the reason this misinformation got so far is that it was "proof" that opossums are valuable and shouldn't be killed for no reason.

Wolves are keystone species and vital to their ecosystems, but it's not true that they never attack humans, there have been a small handful of wolf attacks on humans, it's very few and wolves generally avoid humans but they're not "safe." They shouldn't have to be "safe" to deserve to live.

Fact is, most animals can harm a human if they feel threatened or end up in an unlucky situation! Most animals can spread disease one way or another! We have to live with this, we have to learn and use strategies to keep ourselves safe, we can't just sterilize the world of animals because of a possibility that an animal could hurt someone, any more than we can cut down every tree because trees fall on people sometimes.

No one likes hearing that there's no way to for-sure eliminate all possibility of ticks from your yard, you just have to take precautions against them, but it's true! Just like there's an inherent possibility a wasp could sting you, an inherent possibility a snake could bite you, an inherent possibility a mountain lion could eat your livestock, but you can dramatically lower your risk of these things by knowing how to coexist with these animals.

#nature #thoughts #random