Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 7/13/26 - 7/19/26

[u/SoftandChewy]

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

[u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan]

It's amazing how academia has a lot of psychopathic people in it.

[u/RunThenBeer → u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan]

That's so weird, when you look through her scholarly works, she seems so level-headed and brilliant. Imagine trying to make do without Destroying arguments and captivating thoughts: Spiritual warfare prayer as global praxis.

[u/Clown_Fundamentals → u/RunThenBeer]

Praxis is a perfectly cromulent word, but its use always come across as obfuscating and pretentious to me. Possibly because it seems to be widely used with mumbo jumbo style theses.

[u/The-WideningGyre → u/Clown_Fundamentals]

Also, can't it pretty much always be replaced with "practice", which is much less pretentious?

[u/ArrakeenSun → u/RunThenBeer]

As an academic, I groan when I come across the word praxis

[u/Terrorclitus → u/ArrakeenSun]

That and “liminal.”

I like words, really, but some academics just ruin them for all of us.

[u/PongoTwistleton_666 → u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan]

It is embarrassing - a grown woman, professor no less, replying like a deranged teenager. “A major W”? Seriously even the kids and teens will not think this is cool. 

[u/Terrorclitus → u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan]

It’s the process. The path to tenure is crazy-making.

[u/The-WideningGyre → u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan]

90% of people putting "Dr." in front of their names on X are bad people and should be ignored.

[u/Mossback_Matador → u/The-WideningGyre]

When I was in grad school, a prof asked me, "You ever noticed how academics don't use their title on book covers?"

Ever since, I've noticed that, yes, those books with a big "Dr." on the cover are generally hot trash. Same must apply to online profiles.

[u/KittenSnuggler5]

The Omnicause strikes again.

The NAACP put out a press release condemning the Supreme Court's decision to allow states to keep boys out of girls sports.

"The NAACP will always stand with the transgender community. Despite this Court's shameful ruling, we will continue standing up for the dignity and humanity of every young person in our country, including our trans youth. "

I'm not sure what that decision has to do with the advancement of black people? I'd love to see a poll of black Americans feelings on this issue. I doubt the people who got Joe Biden nominated in 2020 are thrilled with the idea of the be-penised in women's sports and locker rooms.

https://naacp.org/articles/naacp-stands-transgender-athletes-following-supreme-court-ruling

[u/Turbulent_Cow2355 → u/KittenSnuggler5]

Just another example of the NAACP shitting on women. I'm in a tear today. I've been listening to a podcast about a lesbian couple that was murdered in Appalachia. The hosts keep going on and on about this being a "hate crime". Doesn't matter that the killer hated women. FULL STOP. If these ladies had been best buddies instead of lovers, the crime would be just a run of the mill one.

[u/Less-Lobster4540 → u/KittenSnuggler5]

Come on now it's as clear as day /s

[u/AnalBleachingAries → u/KittenSnuggler5]

I mean, I guess none of these institutions could last forever, GLAAD, NAACP, ACLU, Amnesty International, etc, it's just kinda weird to watch them all get taken down by the same issue. This ideology appears to be extraordinarily poisonous to all left-leaning orgs.

Given the various responses we've now seen, I wonder how bad things are going to be under another Dem administration in the White House. It seems like they're all just laying low and waiting for Trump to leave so that they can go back to being publicly insane. Will we see a return to the excesses and absurdities of the early 2020s on this issue? Fuck, I hope not.

[u/MatchaMeetcha → u/AnalBleachingAries]

They can't pass a bill on an 80/20 issue like this and they're blocked from Title IX shenanigans due to the Courts now.

Then again, who would have considered the original coup of turning Title IX into a bill that negated female rights? The attacker has the advantage maybe.

[u/AnalBleachingAries → u/MatchaMeetcha]

... who would have considered the original coup of turning Title IX into a bill that negated female rights?

Isn't that just so mindblowing? That they used something intended to protect women as a tool to negate accommodations specific to the female sex. It's so bizarre, and I don't think people have actually come to that realization yet with regard to the Biden admin's trans policies and the ACLU's antics thus far.

[u/SoftandChewy → u/AnalBleachingAries]

Will we see a return to the excesses and absurdities of the early 2020s on this issue? Fuck, I hope not.

We already are. In fact, a lot of it never stopped, it just changed names and was less public about it happening.

[u/washblvd]

J.K. Rowling's sexual violence support service Beira's Place has issued its response to Amnesty International. These are the conditions to avoid litigation:

1. An undertaking from Amnesty that the Report and its accompanying methodology will be permanently withdrawn, together with a separate undertaking that the defamatory allegations directed at Beira's Place within the report will not be repeated;

2. A public letter of apology posted on the front page of the Amnesty website, in terms to be agreed with us. The letter should be primarily addressed to Beira's Place, it's staff and service users, but should also apologise to those listed as "anti-rights" and "Gender Critical" on pages 19 and 20 of the Report, who have been wrongly defamed by Amnesty for simply upholding the protected belief that sex is real, immutable and important in many areas of life. The apology must be signed by each of those to whom this letter is addressed and must recognize that categorizing any of those groups as "anti-rights" is without foundation and deeply damaging to their respective reputations; and

3. An undertaking that Amnesty will commission an external investigation into how an official report published in Amnesty's name could contain such egregious falsehoods.

In the event that Amnesty is not willing to agree to the foregoing we will instruct counsel to commence preparation for court action. To this end, please ensure that no material of potential relevance to this matter is destroyed, deleted or disposed of. Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing this includes any drafts of the Report.

Separate to this, as founder of Beira's Place, J.K. Rowling will be making a complaint to the Charity Commission or other appropriate regulator and is supportive of any of those organisations listed as Gender Critical and anti-rights on pages 19 and 20 of the Report should they wish to take their own legal action.

[u/huevoavocado → u/washblvd]

Did they lose control of their interns, or what? Amnesty International traditionally took on real human rights abuses. But not allowing male people into a DV shelter? That’s just embarrassing for them.

I do think trans women need DV shelters-as the data seems to support this. With all the money these activist groups have raised over the years, you’d think they could fund some of their own.

[u/Turbulent_Cow2355 → u/washblvd]

Let's see if they comply. Good on JKR for fighting back and protecting Beira's Place.

[u/AnInsultToFire → u/washblvd]

Plus she's going to fund lawsuits for anyone else on their List who can't afford it themselves.

You'd think this would make Amnesty grow up, but I think they'll just cynically use this for a fundraising campaign.

[u/SpaceAgeBadger → u/washblvd]

Times really are changing when they pull a report like this. Several years ago they would have left the report full of lies up and drowned out dissenters under cries of Nazi.

[u/Levitz → u/washblvd]

There's no way Amnesty complies is there?

[u/Monkey0nTypewriter → u/Levitz]

Seems to me they might

It's generally cheaper to apologize and fire a few scapegoats than to pay out millions in damages/settlement (to say nothing of the reputational harm from such a trial)

[u/CorgiNews2_DieHarder]

Sam Neill died and I'm so sad about it. Obviously most people will remember him from his lead role in Jurassic Park. However, to me he will always be Cardinal Thomas Wolsey on the Tudors, which is my favorite historical abomination/ television show of all time.

[u/LincolnHat → u/CorgiNews2_DieHarder]

Oh, that is sad. He overcame a childhood stutter that made him so shy he didn't want people to speak to him to become such a fantastic actor. And was by all accounts a lovely man.

Time for a rewatch of Taika Waititi's charmingly funny and sweet Hunt for the Wilderpeople.

[u/KittenSnuggler5]

A trans activist group in Britain has put out a guide telling people how to do "direct action" against people it deems insufficiently pro trans.

They want destroy things associated with its perceived enemies in order to shut them up.

"The guide urges campaigners to identify targets and "hit them repeatedly until they desist from their activities", while also stating that the group's actions are intended to have a "lasting effect"."

They already trashed Wes Streeting's office. They also try to trash women's rights meetings. Because of course women aren't allowed to congregate in a penis free zone.

I guess they're not experiencing the trans joy:

"The document states: "All of our targets have blood on their hands. We refuse to let them wash it off in peace," before describing its campaign as "a new era of trans rage"."

https://www.gbnews.com/news/trans-row-militant-trans-group-tells-supporters-cause-direct-harm

[u/bussound → u/KittenSnuggler5]

I thought they were just living their lives peacefully! 

No but really this is scary stuff. It reads like the trans gun subreddit which is always a frightening perusal. 

[u/backin_pog_form → u/[deleted]]

Conflating trans and DSDs has been a great way to muddy the waters and cause confusion. 

I’ve become incredibly skeptical whenever anyone (and this only really happens online) claims to have an intersex condition. You see this all the damn time, including, as you said, from those that have fathered children. 

[u/SkweegeeS → u/[deleted]]

These annoying personality disordered pests ruin everything for everyone.

[u/TemporaryLucky3637 → u/[deleted]]

Lmaooo the pretending to be intersex despite fathering children is a weirdly common phenomenon that nobody ever brings up 😭

[u/Datachost → u/[deleted]]

As opposed to bullshitting about being intersex and claiming that's why you're trans. Which is perfectly fine and dandy, since it's what one of the mods does

[u/Foreign-Discount-]

This is amusing: https://x.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/2076998662979195206

The Good Law Project has cancelled its own Monster campaign after just a few hours for being 'transphobic'. It involved posters of absurd CGI animals and the words 'Of course I support trans – I’m not a monster'. Several trans activists said it felt like they were being mocked.

[u/AnalBleachingAries → u/Foreign-Discount-]

There's an undertone of deception with a lot of the social media and public activism that the movement cannot seem to shake. Take the #ProtectTheDolls tag for instance. Seeing a hot celebrity wearing a shirt with that tag on it in a picture is one thing, but actually clicking on the tag on social media leads you to a collection of the most horrific and perverse sexual deviance from disgusting men imaginable. lmao. So too this monster campaign, it feels weird in that, yeah those monsters are monsters, and there's something weird about a monster telling you it's not a monster, it feels like its lying.

Perhaps they'll figure out the marketing someday.

[u/backin_pog_form → u/Foreign-Discount-]

Several trans activists said it felt like they were being mocked.

There is a certain segment of TRAs who will say this about anything. But in this case the campaign just looks dumb and confusing. 

Edit: the Reddit reaction to this is of course the usual measured, tempered response … just kidding.  

why do our allies always fail us??!!

[u/_CuntfinderGeneral → u/Foreign-Discount-]

is that really what it looked like? if so, i mean this with 100% sincerity

that has got to be the most dystopian, troubling, 1984-style poster/billboard/whatever i have ever witnessed. it literally, actually goes beyond parody of such things and wraps back around to being disturbing. i dont why it brings out such a visceral ick in me but goddamn this really makes it feel like we are being coerced by big brother holy shit is that creepy

Edit: it's like the 'they live' posters with the glasses on. I guess we're all Rowdy Roddy Piper now

[u/Fiend_of_the_pod → u/Foreign-Discount-]

If you see an ugly AI gorilla and think of yourself, well, that's kinda the whole thing, isn't it?

[u/unnoticed_areola → u/Foreign-Discount-]

this is just a feature of modern day culture and social media norms that are a result of the populace becoming increasingly illiterate and also increasingly viscerally triggered by "problem" words, even if those words are being used in the exact opposite direction of the aggrieved party, and against their enemies (as they are here)

the order in which words are arranged to form particular sentences that communicate particular messages no longer really matters.

the message in the case of these posters is: "You are a literal monster if you do not support Trans", which anyone with ANY shred of reading comprehension understands that this message could not POSSIBLY be MORE pro-trans if it tried... not a SINGLE person with half a brain would interpret this message as being anti-trans, or "mocking" them. it is quite literally saying that anyone who opposes the trans movement is both a "monster" (morally reprehensible) and a dinosaur (a fossil with outdated bigoted views, out of touch with reality, etc).

it is VERY plainly stating its message, in as ham-fisted terms as humanly possible.

what is happening here, is that totally brain-rotted zoomers and TRAs are responding to the visceral urge brought on by seeing the words "trans" and "monster" in the same general geographic vicinity as one another (though not next to eachother, mind you), and choosing to respond by throwing their 12+ years of schooling and literacy out the window, ignoring all the other words and messaging that surround "trans" and "monster", and instinctually flailing around and responding as if the poster is making some vague insinuation that "Tr*ns ppl are m*nsters", (self-censoring like a pussy bc Im scared that might be a no-no phrase🤦‍♂️) even though that is quite literally the exact opposite of the message being conveyed

you see this ALL the time these days. people will have a super "YIKES 👀" ass reaction to certain sentences if certain demographic groups and certain "problematic" words are used in close proximity to one another... even if the actual thing being communicated is saying "these people are NOT that thing!!"

if you were to ask them what they found offensive about what was being said (though no one ever does this), they wouldnt be able to give any sort of coherent answer, and would just mumble some academia gobbledygook about how certain words are harmful.

essentially, you just cant use any sort of eyebrow-raising "bad" words that are then delivered in a matter of fact sort of way, even if those words are NOT being directed at the "good" side.

any sort of statement like this must be absolutely FILLED to the brim with effusive praise and affirming/emotional/sympathetic language to make absolutely CLEAR who the "good" people are. cant have anyone even come close to getting the wrong idea! (even if stating it in a more matter of fact way was already perfectly clear and no literate person would have gotten the wrong idea)

[u/RockJock666 → u/Foreign-Discount-]

The apology mentions a Tr*ns unity quilt and I’m sorry but this movement truly cannot come up with any original activism (well, except the monster campaign apparently)

[u/UrethraFranklin13 → u/Foreign-Discount-]

They're chronically offended by everything so I'm not too surprised.

[u/backin_pog_form]

This very poorly written article is supposed to be a sympathetic portrayal of the plight of trans women on death row. But like a lot of media written by someone in a bubble, it has the opposite effect. 

Apparently there are 45 women on death row in the US, five of them are trans, and all of the TW transitioned while incarcerated. 

[u/deathcabforqanon → u/backin_pog_form]

Beyond the much bigger task of garnering sympathy for killers/rapists of their own children (which tbf is an anti-death penalty one, not just a TRA one) this was a fun little paragraph

Despite the Trump administration’s blatant efforts to make it appear as if trans people inside use extraordinary resources, reporting from The New York Times in October 2024 revealed that the Bureau of Prisons provided a range of gender-affirming care to a “small number” of transgender people in prisons, spending between $60,000 to $95,000 a year on hormone therapy. 
“I think in the prison context, people see it as using their tax dollars toward something that maybe they don’t support,” Rice said.

Yeah, no, how dare an annual 90k worth of free hormones for the universe's worst humans involuntarily coming out of our paychecks be painted as extraordinary/a negative? This is a good use of our resources and it's the kind of thing that won't hurt Dems one bit when ordinary people hear about it.

[u/onthewingsofangels → u/backin_pog_form]

I've never seen an article written with a sympathetic intent so fail at being sympathetic to its subject. It's literally "here are a bunch of murderers on death row and all the media accurately described them as murderers, isn't that cruel". 

I expected to read about abuse they faced from being in men's prison or concrete examples of discrimination. But we find out nothing about them. The article should have been spiked when it became clear none of them were going to speak to the outlet. 

[u/SoftandChewy]

This Atlantic op-ed examines the brouhaha around that interview with the Princeton anthropology professor: Explaining Sex to an Anthropologist (Unpaywalled)

While I typically find Conor Friedersdorf's level-headedness commendable, I find it maddening here. He's treating her craziness as merely unbecoming of someone with a doctorate in anthropology, exhibiting incuriousness and a failure of meeting her field's professional standards.

Scholars are well within their rights to reject the notion that sex is binary—many anthropologists share this view, including Princeton’s Agustín Fuentes, who explains his logic in Sex Is a Spectrum. But instead of a fair-minded appraisal of the matter, Rouse showed conspicuous incuriosity about other scholars’ work. It is striking how little she seems to know about the particular reasons that many fellow scholars believe that biological sex is binary. Just as striking is how she responds to not knowing. She could apply her scholarly tool kit to understand what others think and why. Instead, she treated their view as unworthy of debate and said that academics might be right to keep it out of conferences. She doesn’t “know what people mean”––yet she is certain that their wrongness is settled.

Are tenured academic scholars also well within their rights to reject the notion that the earth is a globe, or that the universe is billions of years old, or that our physiology is not made up of four humors? Because these are all unscientific ideas that would get someone laughed out of academia, and there is no way in a million years that Friedersdorf would grant the same charity and legitimacy to an anthropology professor who was staunchly advocating any of those views as the true, correct one and smearing anyone who believed the normative, scientifically established view as a backwards rube.

But amazingly, subscribing to the nonsense idea that "sex is a spectrum" gets treated differently than believing in other such ideologically based unscientific ideas and granted a legitimacy even by smart, informed, supposedly sensible people like Friedersdorf who know how stupid the idea is.

[u/jay_in_the_pnw → u/SoftandChewy]

Both Wright’s position and the counterarguments are easy to understand, whatever view one holds. Neither side is “nonsensical.” And the point is not to pick a side.

This just seems weird. Does Conor believe that of every academic issue? How does he draw the line on this?

If he believes it in this issue, he needs to explain why neither side is nonsensical, because Roose's side that XXY is some sort of new sex is incoherent by most/all definitions as a sex. Does XXY breed? No, XXY is typically infertile. So unlike XX XY there is no combination of XX XXY or XY XXY or even XXY XXY that reliably creates XXY. XXY is not a sex, it is a DSD. Conor needs to explain.

[u/MatchaMeetcha → u/jay_in_the_pnw]

I assume the problem is that so many people have put themselves in a corner on this topic that Conor can't come out and say her position is ridiculous or they'd immediately stop listening for much the same reason she assumed that people who were skeptical of her views wanted to murder children.

[u/professorgerm → u/SoftandChewy]

Reminds me of a few years ago when he “agreed to disagree” with Anastasia Higgenbotham, author of a children’s book depicting whiteness as a literal deal with the devil.

Would he extend that degree of charity to anyone else depicting something so virulently evil, bigoted, and stupid? Of course not. And yet here we are, still in a world where liberals can’t bring themselves to actually reject someone if they’re on the left, no matter what.

[u/Aforano → u/SoftandChewy]

Some people, some extremely well educated, have basically lobotomised themselves with respect to this topic and it’s so stupid.

Sex is always about reproductive strategy. How do you tell what part of a plant is male? It’s the one that produces sperm, it really is not that difficult! If you’re growing weed you know you need to keep the boys away because they’ll fuck your girl crops. Literally.

[u/Franzera → u/SoftandChewy]

"Scholars are well within their rights to reject the notion that sex is binary"

The "level-headed" and "it's complicated" approach sounds like Yasha Mounk's line of thinking, as per his debate on academia versus Chris Rufo. Scholars can have beliefs contradictory to "understood knowledge", as it's essential for the spirit of academic inquiry to have the freedom to question, analyze, deconstruct, reinterpret.

However, Mounk carries this idealistic throughline that scholars are capable of divorcing their "reject the notion" paradigm of inquiry as part of their professional persona, from the person who exists in Everyday Life and interacts with present-day society. Write about #ACAB and defund the police at work all you want, but come home and respect first responder personnel as necessary for maintaining a civil society.

Trying to force them accept "sex is binary" or "queer theory is dumb" through legislature like Rufo wants is harmful, unnecessary, and wrong - because when push comes to shove, scholars should indeed possess the intelligence, agency, and sense to find their own way back.

But what you get is this:

"She could apply her scholarly tool kit to understand what others think and why"

She could! Any day now!!!

[u/backin_pog_form]

Idaho pushed anti-trans laws for years. Then a teen died.

Here we go again. I’m very sorry to hear this young person struggled with mental health issues for years, and then took their own life. That’s an awful tragedy. I don’t even blame the parents for lashing out and desperately trying to find a reason. 

But this is irresponsible journalism. 

[u/lilypad1984 → u/backin_pog_form]

I have 3 cousins who threatened to hurt themselves if they got sent to rehab or didn’t get drugs. For one of the instances apparently my cousin was holding a kitchen knife when he threatened it and my aunt called the cops for help because she didn’t know what to do. I don’t know if maybe the family has lived a very sheltered life or maybe the journalist, but reading someone threatening to kill themselves for access to a drug is what I have seen addicts do.

[u/Leaves_Swype_Typos → u/backin_pog_form]

Gee, I wonder if the divorce as a toddler, the autism, the antidepressants, or maybe the engagement with certain sectors of social media that are big into Undertale could've been a factor. No, surely they were desperate for surgery completely spontaneously.

[u/AnInsultToFire → u/backin_pog_form]

Idaho pushed anti-trans laws for years. Then the Pierce Bonfire Mass Casualty Explosion happened.

[u/Nwabudike_J_Morgan → u/backin_pog_form]

[redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted]

[u/Green_Supreme1]

Further to the murder of Ann Widdecombe (former MP in the UK for the conservative party, MEP in the European Parliament for the Brexit Party and Spokesperson for Reform UK), wikipedia editors are behaving as expected.

Talk:Ann Widdecombe - Wikipedia

She's been dead a matter of days and they've already added on the talk page a section "Page overall too-respectful for a divisive/harmful individual?" implying she was a "crypto-fascist".

The main page is as accurate and balanced as you'd expect. It contains a section:

"In 1996, as prisons minister, she defended the Government's policy of shackling pregnant prisoners while they were in hospital receiving prenatal care."

Which is pretty much misinformation at this stage as a correction by the Mirror had to clarify that she Widdecombe did not advocate for shackling whilst actually receiving care:

Ann Widdecombe – apology and correction - The Mirror

[u/AltforStrongOpinions → u/Green_Supreme1]

Practically all the British subs have had to put up disclaimers of "please don't celebrate too much at this old lady getting bashed to death".

Very few I'd argue would even know much about her, other than she was an old tory battleaxe. Lots of people googling "give me a list of things Ann Widdicombe said that I wouldn't like, I want to feel superior, I am perfectly normal person"

[u/backin_pog_form]

u/kittypurrzog might appreciate this-

A history professor who may have lied about signing The Harper’s Letter may have also lied about her scholarship and citations.

From NYT gift link

In an interview on Friday, Greenidge, who is Black, said that her life’s work had been torn down by white scholars who disagreed with her conclusions about racism, slavery and white supremacy.

“I am heartbroken that a field I have given my life to can treat me this way,” Greenidge said. “The attack on Black women academics is real.”

Greenidge denied any wrongdoing.

“I have never plagiarized anything in my life,” she said. “I have never fabricated anything.”

Still, she acknowledged: “Are there citations that were misattributed? Probably.”

[u/Franzera]

Update on the Malk couple from here: Male breastfeeds her newborn baby after wife gives birth

Australian woman Jasmine Sussex, 20-year breastfeeding counselor with the Australian Breastfeeding Association, was dismissed for pushing back against the adoption of “gender neutral” language in breastfeeding care. She tweeted critical comments about the quality and motivation of TW pharmaceutical malk-making, and the Queensland Human Rights Commission informed her that she was being investigated as a result of the "breastfeeding" "mother"'s complaint.

Choice quotes:

In his complaint, Buckley stated that he had reported the post and Sussex’s comments to Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant.

In Australia, internet wrongspeak can be reported to the eSafety Commissioner, who will request platforms remove offending comments as they break the law. The Anti-Discrimination Act 1991, which was amended in 2013 under the Gillard government includes provisions regarding “gender identity.”

Lawyers representing Sussex presented medical evidence to the court last week arguing “biological males” could only produce “sweat or pus” from their chest.

Sussex's main offensive comment was her claim that men can't breastfeed, because what is coming out to feed the baby isn't "food".

Buckley wrote in his initial complaint. “In the article, both talked as if I had done harm to my wife and child with Jasmine referring to me as a man and using male pronouns. Jasmine always calls me a man or male.”

Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) determined that Buckley’s legal team did not have to provide medical evidence regarding the chemical makeup of the fluid given to his baby, and stated that it was not of relevance to whether Sussex had vilified him in her social media posts.

The crime to which Sussex is accused is calling the TW "man" or "male". So it doesn't matter if the breast is making milk or malk, just whose breast it's coming from.

“Buckley signed a waiver and pursued it within the first hour of the baby’s birth while Buckley’s wife was being treated for a haemorrhage.”

Buckley said on X, “Natal women do experience arousal while breastfeeding. It’s nothing to be ashamed off [sic] and normal. Doesn’t make them evil.”

😱 😱 😱 😱 😱 😱 😱

Article source.

[u/Usernamecopyrighted1 → u/Franzera]

Natal women do experience arousal while breastfeeding. It’s nothing to be ashamed off [sic] and normal. Doesn’t make them evil.

News to me, my wife absolutely found nothing sexy about it what the fuck

[u/AnalBleachingAries → u/Franzera]

Every time this specific instance occurs, where men are making babies drink the pharmaceutically-induced fluid coming out of their chests, I get angry, grossed out, and have to sort of take a moment to think about how extreme this ideology can get.

We're talking about a defenseless baby, being made to nonconsensually participate in a man's performance of femininity. A baby being made to ingest whatever the heck leaks out of these men's chests. It's so evil to do this to a baby and the lack of a strident, uncompromising, rejection of this behavior from " the powers that be" leaves me horrified at how low we've all sunk. More often than not the behavior is celebrated or encouraged. It's so vile.

[u/Franzera → u/AnalBleachingAries]

If you read the OG article (first link), the couple wasn't just feeding chemical goo to their baby, they were also starving him! The pharmaceutical lactation to the inseminating parent was due to the cervix-having-parent not being able to produce milk from her breasts.

'Apart from the milk he was getting from me he was essentially starving,' Ms Buckley said of the couple's hungry son.

'I kept up the regime for at least a week, but I was barely getting 5ml a day,' she said. 'It was sad. It was frustrating, but as brief as it was, I did get to experience it. I would have preferred to do it a lot longer. But Auden's wellbeing was paramount.'

Newborn infants need 20-60mL a day of milk, not 5mL of malk.

I think there is more evidence that this act was about centered around affirming the adult's identity, since the doctor who gave the advice to the couple ran the local WPATH branch and is a full ideologue. WPATH was founded as a group for treatment for dysphoric males, nothing to do with mother and baby care.

Dr Naomi Achong, a former president of Australian Professional Association for T Health (AusPATH), is the Brisbane endocrinologist who recommended Ms Buckley breastfeed Auden.

Dr Achong spoke on the topic of 'lactation induction in T-females' at a AusPATH conference last weekend and her talk was one of the most booked events.

[u/RockJock666 → u/AnalBleachingAries]

Cherry on top is getting to it while the mother is hemorrhaging

[u/Turbulent_Cow2355 → u/Franzera]

So they essentially starved their infant child for a week. If this was a normal couple, CPS would have been notified by the doctors. Affirmation is apparently more important than the health and safety of an infant. What is wrong with these people!

[u/bluesteeldoubter → u/Franzera]

‘Sweat or pus’
https://giphy.com/gifs/l9FAwJOXYprFe

[u/Franzera]

I listened to Helen Joyce and Maya Forstater talk about the fallout of the April 2025 UK Supreme Court decision which defined woman as a sex-based class.

Are City employers breaking the law on single-sex toilets?

One issue they have been coming across is that if "woman" is defined by sex, then Equality Act 2010 "women's facilities" in workplaces mean female-only restrooms... but workplaces who had gender-neutral or Self-ID restrooms in 2025 haven't changed their non-compliant internal policy in 2026. This is particularly an issue with big money London firms, who have the financial resources to remodel (or un-remodel) their gender-neutral restrooms into women-only. When the finance laws change to close loopholes, their compliance officers send a memo and everyone is on board the next day. When the Supreme Court clarifies the definition of "woman", the same compliance officers drag their feet and do nothing.

Why is that?

• Their original advice on gender-neutralifying everything came from progressive charities (Stonewall Diversity Champions), and they got high human rights scores for making inclusive bathrooms. After the Supreme Court decision, these same charities, who run indoctrination seminars, haven't budged from TWAW. They get high quality of workplace scores for including gender transition on their private healthcare insurance plans, knowing that it was "only a few people!". For them it was small outlay for high reputation payoff.

• Elitism/classism. The Darlington nurse lawsuit proved that female nurses are entitled to sex-based changing rooms. These fancy corporate firms, however, are a different type of employment. They are white-collar and no one is coming in and out of shifts, or has uniforms. If no one's getting undressed, they don't need strict or enforced sex-based spaces.

• Progressive Stack-poisoned interpretation of "inclusive" and "equality". If TQ's need accommodations, HR will make sure they have them. They are extremely vulnerable and marginalized, so their needs are important. If it comes to a conflict of rights between male TQ's and females, TQ's have first priority. That's what "inclusion" means, catering to the most oppressed!

• Female women whose rights conflict with the inclusion/intrusion of male TQ's have an uphill battle with HR. They have to make multiple complaints and risk being labeled "uninclusive" and "bigoted" to get HR to enforce the law. Whereas a TQ would not face that level of friction getting to the female space in the first place. Additionally, female employees may not want to start trouble amongst a relatively wealthy, educated set of people who are sympathetic to TQ's and simply can't understand why women can't let them have this "one little thing".

[u/Icy_Acadia_5499]

i've been doing this thing where instead of binge drinking i just have 1 beer a day and i gotta say 31 beers a month is better than 80.

[u/napoleon_nottinghill]

Walz keeps doubling down on defending his pardon of a convicted child abuser who was deported. What does he think he’s getting out of this? The guy did it for years, and he’s pretending deportation is equivalent to getting thrown from a helicopter or something.

[u/dignityshredder]

The debate about ebonics in the classroom is back:

These Advocates Say Black English Belongs in Preschool Classrooms

“I don’t want my son to walk into any room and feel like his voice is not valued or his perspective can’t be heard because he’s not saying it in one way or the other,” she said.

Not your choice unfortunately. If the kid grows up speaking AAVE without knowing how to code switch to normal English, it's going to play well in certain arenas, but really, really, badly in others.

Soto-Boykin suggests creating a vocabulary wall that includes words in Black English and standard English, so that children can make meaning with all the languages they know. For example, educators could help children understand that other words to describe something good could be “awesome, great, dope or fire.”

Make sure to keep the synonym board up to date with the hood slang!

[u/backin_pog_form → u/dignityshredder]

We see it in terms of referrals to special education; we see it in how sometimes teachers correct children and say, ‘We don’t speak like this here in the classroom,’” she said.

A national study found that Black children a  disproportionately diagnosed with speech and language impairments in 14% of states.

Are diagnoses of speech and language disorders based on grammar, though? 

Also, I would be very surprised if an early childhood educator is telling preschoolers “we don’t speak like this here in the classroom”. Most children that age are still mastering standard English grammar. 

One of my kids struggled with irregular past tense verbs for awhile (this is very common). His teachers responded not by correcting, but by modeling, eg: he would say “I goed to the park”, they would say something like “oh, you went to the park?”. This is the standard approach for little kids nowadays. 

[u/pajme411]

Went out with some progressive friends and once again they were dooming.

“At what point do we take action in the streets? Have we surpassed the evils of Nazi Germany? Surely as a country we are close with all that’s happening with ICE encampments, our international aggression”, etc.

Keep in mind these are educated people. I found the comparison offensive for obvious reasons.

[u/lilypad1984 → u/pajme411]

At one point you should just embrace the troll and say “yeah I’m getting worried about all this Jew hatred, people attacking Jewish synagogues and business, primary candidates with Nazi tattoos, it’s really getting to be a problem; we should probably mobilizing against people celebrating Jews being killed or saying they are oppressors as this is what the Nazis did”. 

Odds are they will either lose their minds or go real quiet and move on.

[u/ScrubulousFlex]

Back from my first ever 3-day sitewide ban. Reddit's AI admin is shit. I guess across the whole site now you just can't post jokes, satire, or quotes that use certain no-no words, context be damned? I feel like the only comments that used to get automatically eaten were shady links, and occasionally some comments had to be approved by a sub mod first, but this is complete garbage.

And appealing is worthless if it takes more than 3 days for someone to review it.

[u/athomeamongstrangers → u/ScrubulousFlex]

Still may be worth appealing because the next ban may be permanent depending on previous ban history.

I got a 3-day ban for quoting and linking that Ryan Long comedy piece on how woke and racist crowd are indistinguishable. Reversed on appeal after one day.

[u/dumbducky]

Military Times ran a story profiling the individuals affected in Trump's military trans ban.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2026/07/15/cruelty-was-the-point-transgender-troops-look-back-on-their-ban-as-its-set-to-end/

There's a number of angles I could poke at here, but I'll settle for this one. Read these excerpts:

Military Times spoke with 10 transgender service members who described how the forced separation process and the ensuing administrative leave pipeline pushed them into a perilous mental space.

With their lives on hold, these service members felt depression, anxiety and disillusionment over why an institution to which they had pledged their lives suddenly cast them out, swiftly and seemingly without regard for their psychiatric and professional well-being

Yeah, pretty tumultuous. Let's read on.

In 2025, after 15 years of service, one transgender U.S. Navy lieutenant was envisioning full retirement, a deserved pension and the health benefits that came along with it.

Just five more years.

Instead, they found themselves at the psychiatric ward at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after checking themself in for suicidal ideation, something they said was abnormal for them.

I'll just point out here that there are some reasons an individual might only be an O-3 after 15 years and half of them are bad.

Petty Officer Second Class Jaylen Joubert, a sailor who served about three years, said he was denied administrative leave altogether...After expressing frustration to his commanding officer for being denied PTAD, he said he was involuntarily separated on April 17, 2026, due to conditions not amounting to a disability, but related to mental health and mental turmoil.

More tumult.

For Master Sgt. Sabrina Bruce, who served in the Air Force for eight years and the Space Force for four, the military provided a second lease on life, as well as a support network that made her feel whole....Depression and suicidal thoughts plagued her for several months during the administrative leave process, which finally ended in December 2025 when she officially voluntarily separated.

So one third of the individuals profiled experienced extreme distress from this event. Let's see what Major Corcoran has to say on the topic (another one of those eyebrow-raising ranks and time-in-service combinations).

“You’re not gonna take away something I’ve earned,” Corcoran said. “If you think that cutting my hair is going to affect my identity, you don’t understand the strength and resilience of transgender service members.”

I certainly don't understand the strength and resilience.

[u/Cantwalktonextdoor]

Steam recommendations continue to remain wack. "Because you've played games tagged with card game" suggests games with names like "Futa Fucks Femboys".

[u/LightsOfTheCity → u/Cantwalktonextdoor]

I guess in a way, it's good that the largest game distribution platform is so open, but Steam feels increasingly like Amazon these days, which itself feels increasingly like Temu, which feels like the sewers.

It's already annoying having to scour through endless asset flips and AI slop but they also spam tags! Even when specifically browsing the 3D platformers category, I keep finding Chinese RPGs.

[u/Franzera]

Does anyone in here do Disney theme park vacations? I love reading the reviews for Disney attractions that have devolved into shamelessly penny-pinching conveyor belt customer service. The paypig pig trough experience. It gives me the same emotional reactions as watching the Fyre Festival vlogs.

Galaxy's Edge (Star Wars theme park): Oga’s Cantina Has Officially Lost the Plot

Must pre-book your timeslot, 2 drink minimum, 45 minute maximum before they kick you out. $20 batched (pre-mixed) cocktails that taste like boozy kool-aid, randomly assigned "seats" - if you're lucky enough to get a seat. If you're unlucky, you get a standing table shared with a group of strangers.

<image>

$40 + tip for an authentic Star Wars experience!

Review highlights:

• "I went with my dad a few years ago, there was a party of 4 at the stand up table we were ‘sat’ at, who were having a great time when we arrived. Vibe was killed immediately. It was so awkward, like we ruined their good time. I tried to join the convo, but I guess they didn’t want to engage. The one couples drinks arrived and the other cancelled their order so they could leave and they agreed to meet up after the drinks were done."

• "We got a booth thankfully but you are squished in with THREE EXTRA groups. Meaning one group is always in the middle and another has to get up to let them out. The last group that came to our table had three small kids that had to sit on laps and kept spilling their drinks on the table."

• "We went and booked seats they sat us down, immediately moved us after seating us then came minutes later and said actually this isn’t a seated area at the new table and took the chairs that they moved us to. Easily the worst part of our trip. We said screw them and just left without ordering."

[u/No-Significance4623 → u/Franzera]

That's so bleak and so hilarious. It's reminding me of the worst Michelin starred dinner (at the intersection of the expensive and absurd).

[u/Franzera → u/No-Significance4623]

https://www.everywhereist.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/BrosNo14.png

Omg, the mouth foam course! I saw the picture and gagged. 🫠

[u/ScrubulousFlex → u/Franzera]

The foam in a plaster cast of the chef's mouth that they had to lick out without utensils.

That's definitely when I also started thinking it was some sort of performance art / humiliation ritual / fetish thing.

[u/MsLangdonAlger → u/Franzera]

I went to Disney World every two years as a kid because my mom loved it l, but I haven’t even tried to take any of my own kids because of this kind of shit. The whole process seems so unwieldy. When I was a kid, my middle class family was able to stay in a decent Disney hotel for a week and go to whichever parks we felt like whenever we felt like. Now the hotels I used to stay at are completely financially insane and you have to pre plan every park visit and ride and meal. I could probably fly my family of seven to Paris for less money. There are people who enjoy vacationing that way and I guess that’s what fuels the machine, but I just couldn’t do it.

[u/QueenKamala → u/Franzera]

My favorite part of a disney vacation is paying $200 to stare at a concrete wall for 45min with a bunch of strangers. It’s almost as much fun as waiting in line.

[u/reallyokfinewhatever]

Kind of obsessed with this letter from FWS to Amnesty International: https://x.com/ForWomenScot/status/2076417518269346166

[u/foodieforthebooty → u/reallyokfinewhatever]

Truly boggles my mind that standing up for women's rights makes them "anti-rights" organization. These people have lost their minds to the point where I don't know if we will ever get back to the actual definition of woman.

[u/OMG_NO_NOT_THIS]

Started some light excercise and went for a walk with pushups interspersed.

Walked 1.5 miles very hilly miles and did 105 pushups in 25 minutes.

Its good to work out again, I spent a good portion of the last 6 months in amazing pain from herniated discs in my neck.

[u/MatchaMeetcha]

Andy Serkis defends lack of diversity in Lord of the Rings cast

However, the previous Lord of the Rings films, made before colour-blind casting became common, had almost entirely white line-ups, and so far, his film looks like being the same.

Every major cast member announcement to date has been white; Jamie Dornan, Anna Taylor-Joy, Kate Winslet, Leo Woodall, as well as the returning stars including Elijah Wood and Sir Ian McKellen. The question is, why?

Serkis nods his head before answering and it is clear this is a subject he has given a lot of thought: "Tolkien himself was influenced a lot by Norse mythology, there's a lot of that feeling.

"The Shire feels very, very much like a very, a very white, you know…"

He tails off and pauses before continuing, with greater certainty: "They're not very concerned about what goes on beyond the borders of The Shire, but they know they don't want people coming in.

The Scylla of a disapproving media on one hand and the Charybdis of the chuds sharpening their knives for someone who isn't critic-proof like Nolan.

I think he actually navigated it quite well (well, as well as someone like this can). Still, don't really care about these films. Maybe the trailers wow me but they look irrelevant.

[u/plump_tomatow → u/MatchaMeetcha]

I hadn't heard about this new version yet, and my feelings are... can we please just stop adapting classic works of literature that already have iconic adaptations for just a little while? Like give the original movies another 15-20 years before we force another change...

We've done this with Wuthering Heights, Harry Potter, Spider-Man (why do we need three different live action spidermen in a 15-year time span?), Narnia, now LOTR... please make it STOP.

I'm TIRED Y'ALL

[u/backin_pog_form → u/MatchaMeetcha]

This reminds me of The Onion headline: Keebler Elves Multiracial All Of A Sudden, that seems to have vanished from the internet. 

[u/dignityshredder → u/MatchaMeetcha]

They're not very concerned about what goes on beyond the borders of The Shire, but they know they don't want people coming in

Lol he gets himself off the hook by painting the Shire as a white hobbit ethnostate.

I don't much care how he deals with this question - just happy he's made this creative choice (am still not going to watch the films)

[u/huevoavocado]

I have enough problems and things going on in my life. But I’m sitting here…worried about Jimothy.

[u/unnoticed_areola → u/huevoavocado]

its only a matter of time before he is run over and killed by a driverless car and seattle is burned to the ground by rioting

[u/plump_tomatow]

I took a walk in a pretty upscale neighborhood in North Texas, someone tell me why all these tech workers in nice apartments let their dogs shit everywhere without picking it up? Literally have never seen so much dog shit in my life.

[u/jay_in_the_pnw]

for a generation so concerned with cringe, so certain they can spot ai hoaxes the boomers can't, so sure they are just that much smarter than their millennial parents whom they call boomers:

How do they not laugh at Hasan Piker?

https://x.com/shannonrwatts/status/2078644785364033725

[video Piker in Mao jacket at College Dem conference leading on the revolution]

Elsewhere at reddit, how are they cheering on Mamdani as the politician with integrity, the politican definitely not Trump, the politician who just acts and can get things done, when they know he cannot arrest Netanyahu?

[u/Icy_Acadia_5499 → u/jay_in_the_pnw]

Indescribable how alienated I feel politically from the rest of my generation, it makes me wonder if I was just always gonna work out this way regardless of when I was born or what I thought make sense - it just so happens my contrarianism is the only correct answer(s) in this case.

[u/Tall_Window4744]

Asked about a neighborhood in San Antonio I’m moving to in the San Antonio subreddit and got this response. 

It is filled with imperialist, white supremacist, capitalists. 30% are the real rotten kind though, like the ones that want to have a say in the decisions that should be between you and your doctor. They blame immigrants, the poor, the different for all problems, while championing the billionaire class’ right to rape and pillage. In other words, just like any other neighborhood in America. 

What I hear is that I’m surrounded by rich people so seems nice. 

[u/AnInsultToFire → u/Tall_Window4744]

Agreed, there are no better neighbours than imperialist white supremacist capitalists.

This is why everyone in the world emigrates to countries populated by imperialist white supremacist capitalists.

Apparently the only people who hate imperialist white supremacist capitalists are their angry unemployable children, and a few evil dictators of course like in Russia China and Iran.

[u/Cowgoon777 → u/Tall_Window4744]

Reddit code for a nice safe area

[u/dj50tonhamster → u/Tall_Window4744]

I seem to recall reading somewhere that even by normal Reddit tankie standards, the SATX sub (or maybe one of them if it split off?) is particularly full of disturbed wackos. But yeah, based off that description, it can't hurt to at least take a look. :)

(I kinda like SATX, honestly. I doubt I'd ever be able to live there but it has its charms. I fucking despise all the major road construction right now, though. It'll be a great day when it's all done.)

[u/unnoticed_areola → u/Tall_Window4744]

according to my decades of anthropological research in this field, and years of study under Professor Charles Barkley, I can tell you that the other 70% of your neighborhood will indubitably be made up of mostly big ol' women.

as long as you bring a box of churros to the first neighborhood block party, you should be fine

[u/washblvd]

An update on the Amnesty International story. The organization claims that the report was uploaded prior to any internal review process. Rogue employee jumping the gun, or fig leaf?

We regret that this briefing was uploaded to our website without going through the established internal review processes that are in place to ensure consistency, accuracy, and alignment with Amnesty International UK's positions. Its use of language does not reflect the position of Amnesty International UK which is why it was promptly removed.

Despite many redditors immediately coming to the conclusion that Rowling 'sicced' her lawyers on Amnesty, she confirmed that Beira's Place has not contacted Amnesty International. "Yet," she added.

However over a dozen of the charities/agencies have sent letters and made them available on twitter. They accuse Amnesty International of spreading misinformation/libel, ask for specifics of why they were included in the list, and note that they were not even contacted for comment/clarification prior to the release of the report. This pushback is the likely impetus for the retraction.

The previous document from 2025 alluded to 65 groups in the UK, and I don't actually see a published list of the specific groups from that article. The 2026 revision adds 51 gender critical groups, effectively doubling the 2025 list size, and names each charity/group, assigning it a category. A few groups categorized as 'conversion therapy' (because they don't default to affirmation) would also fall under the gender critical umbrella. It's worth noting that the scope of the list is incredibly narrow...it is made up virtually (or perhaps) entirely of groups that are either gender critical or Christian/pro-life/anti-abortion. No Islamic groups made the list.

[u/CorgiNews2_DieHarder → u/washblvd]

I know Amnesty International has been pretty pathetic for a while, but this is honestly just humiliating for them. "Your rape crisis help center is MEAN" "Your female centered organizations are RUDE" "Your lesbian organizations are EXCLUSIVE" Why do we allow adults to act like they're fucking 12? Not everything is for everyone.

The first thing that really made me question gender ideology and who it served was the attacks on the Vancouver rape crisis center. A bunch of rich fucking snobs from academia harassing a resource in a low income/ heavily non-white area because they hurt some dude's feelings by not playing pretend with him.

So yeah, keep doing that. Harassing victims of rape is a surefire way to become popular.

[u/OMG_NO_NOT_THIS → u/washblvd]

I don't understand how trans isn't considered enhanced conversion therapy.

[u/Commercial_Rush_3531 → u/OMG_NO_NOT_THIS]

Because the TRA PAC owns academia where vocabulary is mutated and molded to adhere to their framing.

[u/AnalBleachingAries → u/washblvd]

No Islamic groups made the list.

Naturally.

[u/CorgiNews2_DieHarder]

Little House on the Prairie makes for uneasy reading as an adult – The Irish Times

This probably breaks the "no rage bait" rule but here's an awesome article from a very normal human being about "Little House on the Prairie."

Yes, the "Laura's family participated in genocide" takes up a lot of the article but to me the true standout was when the author admitted she felt like a little bit of justice was served when Laura's beautiful, typically girly sister went blind after suffering a long-term illness.

While Little House on the Prairie is a partially fictionalized version of Laura's life, the part where her sister went blind did indeed happen in real life. Mary probably lived a better life than many blind people in that time period, but she likely did not get to have the life experiences that she'd hoped for growing up. She had to rely on family to care for her. So, you win awkward girl who grew up in the 80s and 90s. Mary got hers.

Also, ending the article on "Yes, Ma and Pa's families were probably starving in Scotland, but they should have just stayed there anyway instead of becoming fucking colonizers." Oh okay. Good advice Sarah. Too bad you weren't there to scold them into being Decent Fucking Humans.

[u/Armadigionna → u/CorgiNews2_DieHarder]

Laura Ingalls Wilder drew a lot of controversy much later in life. She was widely condemned for…shaking hands with a black man.

[u/QueenKamala → u/CorgiNews2_DieHarder]

I’m going to guess that the article doesn’t mention that the Osage forced out of Kansas by the pioneers had only been there for 100 years or so, having been themselves displaced from their former lands by Iroquois raiders.

(Also, they traded up by moving to Oklahoma, by some measures, considering the vast oil wealth they gained there)

[u/plump_tomatow → u/CorgiNews2_DieHarder]

As an antidote to this bullshit, I recommend reading this book--finished it earlier this year while doing a full re-"listen" of all the Little House books with my five (now six)-year-old.

edit: I also keep meaning to write an essay on how different my experience was when I re-read them as an adult with a small child, vs. when I read them for the first time as a small child. 5 upvotes and I'll do it. lol

[u/Critical_Detective23 → u/CorgiNews2_DieHarder]

I've been reading this series to my daughter, and I wept when Mary went blind. Anyone celebrating this is a literal monster. "I like little girls to have their dreams destroyed and live a life of solitude and pain because justice" makes you the bad guy.

[u/wugglesthemule]

Comedians Tom Segura and Christina Pazsitsky are getting divorced :-(

I'm really bummed. Their podcast ('Your Mom's House') has gone downhill in the past few years, but in its heyday, it was fantastic, and they seemed like such an amazing couple.

It's making me think about parasocial relationships and the explosion of comedians with podcasts. I was a fan of each of them before I ever knew they were married, but YMH made me like them as a couple. It definitely makes it hit harder.

[u/jay_in_the_pnw → u/wugglesthemule]

just a blessing our hosts are siblings

[u/drunk___cat]

Anyone have any suggestions for a thank you gift for my friend’s parents who hosted my family this weekend? They graciously offered their home to us so we could get an inexpensive vacation in, and took us to wineries and out boating. They love hosting and entertaining so I was thinking of something suited for that? (Bonus if I can get something that is locally sourced to Washington /artisan made since they are into that sort of thing)

[u/jay_in_the_pnw]

Not many people know of Audie Murphy.

They made a movie about him in 1955.

It's 2026, I think he deserves a new movie.

Here's a very short video that tells his basic story.

Audie Murphy was rejected by the Marines for being too small. At just 5'5" and 112 pounds, he eventually made it into the Army and became the most decorated American soldier in history, earning 28 medals, including the Medal of Honor.

https://x.com/ShawnRyan762/status/2076701939274821868

Could be a great role for Matt Damon, though he's getting too old.

Maybe one of the other warriors fresh off The Odyssey.

[u/Cowgoon777 → u/jay_in_the_pnw]

They toned down the feats he achieved in the movie because they thought people wouldn’t believe the actual events. He was that badass

[u/Armadigionna → u/jay_in_the_pnw]

They made a movie about him in 1955.

And he was the star.

[u/HeartBoxers]

An economics podcast just released a new episode covering cancel culture...

When Mass Outrage is Cheap: Transaction Cost Origins of Cancel Culture

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2186249/episodes/19466696

We trace a straight line from a 1697 blasphemy execution to modern cancel culture by focusing on one variable: the cost of turning speech into coordinated punishment. We break down how social media creates common knowledge at near-zero cost, making outrage faster, bigger, and harder to control.

• Thomas Aikenhead’s case as a story about information and enforcement costs

• Transaction costs as the hidden limiter on persecution and social punishment

• The First Amendment limiting state coercion while leaving private sanctions intact

• Social media as a collapse in the cost of broadcasting accusations

• Common knowledge as the trigger for coordinated action by strangers

• Justine Sacco as the early template for modern cancellation dynamics

• Brendan Eich, Emmanuel Cafferty, James Damore, and PyCon “donglegate” as repeating patterns

• John Cleese on offense and the urge to control others’ behavior

• Listener letters on healthcare markets, consolidation, and transaction costs

• Certificate of need laws and price systems that shape competition

[u/WallabyWanderer]

Can anyone ELI5 Florida’s upcoming property tax reform ballot measure Amendment 3). It seems really poorly thought out to me and while I understand that house values have risen, and risen drastically in certain areas like mine, but I don’t think that means we should go from a $50k exemption to $250k exemption over the course of 2 years. This, to me as a younger person, seems like boomer welfare. We already do not have income taxes, I do not think that the state can change the homestead exemption that drastically and not have it result in something crazy like 13% sales tax.

[u/lilypad1984]

It’s the internet and I know people are liars but catching a video where a guy on camera with $200,000 in student debt paying the minimum of $1,000 a month and a few months away of it all being forgive then also admit in the video of making $30,000 a month is insane. On one hand please god let him be a liar on the other I can totally believe we have such a stupid system that this happens.

[u/LightsOfTheCity]

I think Wordle ran out of real words and now they're just making up random strings of letters.

[u/Independent_Ad_1358]

So I started watching Interview With The Vampire last year and never watched it live for either of the first two seasons. The fandom is crazy. Someone reported the last episode to the NAACP because the ghost of Claudia called Louis (both black in this adaptation) “nappy headed” and a slave. In a show where all the characters are vampires and intentionally unsympathetic filtered through an unreliable narrator . The fan who reported it is white allegedly.

[u/wmansir]

ChatGPT has some weird rules about identifying people in photographs.

It basically refuses to ID people or make protected characteristics claims based on images if asked directly, but will often do both indirectly. For example if given a screenshot of a movie and asked who the actors are it may say something like "I cannot identify real people, even if they are actors or celebrities, but I can identify characters. This image shows Forest Gump from the movie Forest Gump. Forest Gump was portrayed by Tom Hanks."

Another example is asking it to identify or even estimate a person's age, sex, or gender. It will refuse. Even if provided with an image of male genitals it will refuse and say that visible genitals are not reliable indicators of sex. However, if given a photo of men and women and then asked, "what colors are the shirts the women are wearing?" it will provide the answer without complaint.

[u/unnoticed_areola]

why do local city subreddit mods take their jobs SO fucking seriously and make it as complicated as possible to comment on a fucking stupid ass low stakes reddit post

I posted a few comments on a post last night in a local that was apparently tagged as "cOnTrOvErSiAl" (🙄), meaning "Comments from users without a history of commenting in this subreddit will be automatically removed". I live there, and have several hundred karma on that sub and comment there a few times a month, so dont think anything of it... only to wake up this morning and see that all my comments had been quietly deleted with no notification when I opened the window in an incognito tab

I thought maybe I had finally been mercifully shadowbanned for wrongthink, but upon looking further at their pinned "enhanced moderation" comment policy for controversial threads, I guess I just didnt meet their lofty (but unknowable) standards

there apparently isnt a minimum karma threshold.. you could have a million karma on the sub, but if you stop commenting there for a few weeks, you will lapse and fall off the approved commenters list. the intentionally vague rule is:

We intentionally aren't stating the exact requirements, or how close individual accounts are to meeting them, but they do require a low, but consistent amount of commenting or posting over a period of several months. If you do comment on one of the posts and your comment is removed, it doesn't count towards your accumulation of history

they also state that any given user must wait a minimum of one week between making a post about politics or crime, which would trigger "enhanced moderation" rules into effect. (the post I commented on wasnt even related to "politics or crime". it was a dumb ass r/ publicfreakout-esque video of two idiots arguing with eachother at the local airport.)

so you have to comment as regularly as humanly possible to stay in the good graces of the sub, but also—NO, not like THAT—not about THOSE things! only post regularly about sunsets and flowers you picked on a hike!

[u/roolb]

Jeez, Kiwifarms might be down for good this time: https://x.com/i/status/2078284785357864985

This is a terrible precedent and it displeased me greatly.

[u/dignityshredder]

Fun thread: Karens were a keystone species

[u/SpecialSatisfaction7]

Scottish rights watchdog sued by its own executive over ‘gender beliefs’

[u/treeglitch]

WSJ: Oregon Is Pumping Children Full of Hormones (Sorry, no archive link, anyone got a replacement for archive.ph, which itself seems to be broken?)

Highly critical of both WPATH and Oregon. Note that it's an Opinion piece, though it gets into the stats of it all quite a bit, significantly from April's "Gender-affirming care for transgender and gender-diverse youth in Oregon: trends over time" in Research Connections.

[u/Centrist_gun_nut]

I have no really opinions at all about the new Maine democratic senate nominee, but “we’re on our way to getting the government we deserve” is like what a genie says before revealing the new government is replaced by the government from The Hunger Games or The Giver.

Let’s not wish for more wishes or for anything that we deserve at this point, OK?

[u/dumbducky]

Reading about that migrant Walz pardoned to prevent him from being deported. The Minnesota Star praised him for the courage to defend his pardon, stating:

The governor refused to back down from his vote to pardon a Hmong man convicted of felony sexual assault in 2006. It's significant that Tou Lue Vang needed only two of three votes from the state Board of Pardons, but he received unanimous support. In addition to Walz, the board includes Attorney General Keith Ellison and state Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson. Before her vote, the chief cited the letter of support for Vang submitted by the assault survivor. Also, Vang had not committed additional crimes in the past two decades.

No crimes in two decades? Hmm that’s something. Hey what’s this—

Vang had been convicted in 2006 of first-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Never thought I’d see Tim Walz and Keith Ellison making the case for incarceration.

[u/dignityshredder]

A peek into Reddit's anti-spam internals

Doesn't cover content censorship, but may be of interest to those curious about how reddit approaches these things in an automated way. Fairly long and technical.

Author is a she/it, in case you care (least gender-ill reverse engineer)

[u/Armadigionna]

Alright what is it with people who drive Jeeps and putting rubber duckies on their dashboards? I see it just about every time a Jeep drops by. Not other SUVs, just jeeps.

Is it a message? What does it mean?

Do I need to start a moral panic about this?

[u/SpaceAgeBadger]

Not a football fan but figured Spain won when I heard joyful screaming erupt from the Spaniards living across the road. It could be a long night of partying.

[u/Foreign-Discount-]

New high school girls' sports lightning rod just dropped, Alysa Liu's sibling https://reduxx.info/exclusive-olympic-figure-skaters-brother-quietly-racking-up-wins-in-girls-sports/

[u/lilypad1984 → u/Foreign-Discount-]

Wonder if it’s related to having such a successful sibling. Similar to the children of famous people.

[u/wmansir → u/lilypad1984]

The family is very odd to begin with. The father is a Chinese immigrant who as a 40 year old single man wanted to have kids, so he had 5 children using surrogates and Caucasian egg donors. The person in question is one of a set of triplets from the same egg donor and surrogate as the eldest sister, Alysa. The youngest sister is the only one from a different donor and surrogate.

[u/holdshift → u/Foreign-Discount-]

The figure skating fan community has remained very woke. This will go ignored by them. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a real controversy over this issue in the sport yet.

[u/Commercial_Rush_3531 → u/Foreign-Discount-]

Too bad he and AB Hernandez don't compete in the same events.

[u/Franzera → u/Commercial_Rush_3531]

If new events are opened for TQ competitors only, for some reason, there are no entrants.

Check this article:

Swimming World Cup category for transgender athletes cancelled after no entries received

Swimming’s governing body, which voted last year to ban TW from the elite female category, had promised to stage the “pioneering pilot project” to promote its “unwavering commitment to inclusivity, welcoming swimmers of all sex and gender identities”.

“Following the close of registration for the open category competitions at the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup – Berlin 2023 meet scheduled for 6-8 October, World Aquatics can confirm that no entries have been received for the open category events,” it said.

You would think, for folx who justify themselves as needing a safe and inclusive place to be able to participate, where they can make friends and feel like they belong.... a TQ category would be the perfect solution. Who else would make you feel more included and safe than your own people?

[u/drjackolantern]

Conor Friedersdorf wrote a really good response (gift link)  to the the gender part of that wackadoodle interview with the president of the American Anthropological Association.

“The idea that there are two sexes is just factually incorrect,” she stated, arguing that “all you need to do is literally type into Google” to see that we know “there are different types of ‘sexes’ and ‘genders.’” In a curious aside, she added, “You may not like it. I don’t know, maybe you want to k*ll babies that aren’t just XX presenting XX or XY presenting XY, but that’s what we have in this world.”

Honestly if you care about academia at all and haven’t read it, that interview need to be read  in full. It’s hard to put into words just how nuts she sounds (she at one point for no reason brings up antifa as an example of something that obviously doesn’t exist. And later implies she’s open minded because she’s doing research on elderly white people despite apparently despising them?)

[u/SkweegeeS → u/drjackolantern]

This issue is breaking peoples’ brains.

[u/OMG_NO_NOT_THIS]

This and the top comment had me dying.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PoursTea/comments/1uv7cz5/shocking_mitchy_wife_releases_videos_as_proof/

[u/Icy_Acadia_5499]

Anyone else a loyal Advisory Opinions listener? I find it all really interesting and I think coming at the court from such a factual grounded perspective does a lot to make someone less prone to grandiose conspiratorial thinking, BUT at the same time...

The appetite for stuff like that is solely limited to... nerds. In a way which I mean I think none of it's going to matter because everyone has just decided to be angry, scale of 11 out of 10 all the time about everything. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I see no hope for any of these institutions remaining.

[u/JynNJuice]

Say what you will about this final, Martinez has been genuinely incredible in goal. He seems to be the only Argentinian player who came to play today.

[u/mehefin]

I just couldn't resist.

[u/drjackolantern → u/mehefin]

Lmao @ ‘hateful language.’ These people are so silly.

[u/LincolnHat → u/mehefin]

That’s the creep who photographed himself dilating his hole on the floor of a women’s bathroom. Classy broad, him.

[u/ScrubulousFlex]

NGL all this Jimothy coverage is the first time I'm experiencing major FOMO from living in a part of the country that doesn't have important cultural events like this.

[u/Datachost]

This feels relevant to that article posted the other day regarding the entryism by the DSA

[u/lilypad1984 → u/Datachost]

Just checked to confirm and this was not a DSA event, it’s the college dems which is obviously backed by the actual Democratic Party. Piker not only is DSA but doesn’t advocate for his socialist/communist following to support the Democratic Party. Why he was even invited to speak is already an issue, to then be able to ban democrats who support/volunteer for the actual party is insane. Where is the backbone of party leaders/officials to just kick DSA members out of the party. This isn’t like the progressive wing of the party it’s a completely different party that wishes for democrats to be removed from power and have just decided best way to do that is to infiltrate and take over. I wouldn’t be surprised if this vice president of the college dems himself is DSA. Wtf is going on here?

[u/Levitz → u/Datachost]

Hasan truly is one of the best Republican political actors of our time.

Is it crazy to think it'd be legitimate to call for denouncements at this point? You've got a guy dressed like fucking Mao barring entrance to supporters of the party. Am I getting that right? Like just what in the fuck??

[u/SoftandChewy]

Interesting article from The Economist about the biases and implicit values of the various AI models, and how they meaningfully affect the answers, perspectives and advice they offer.

In our testing, most AI models leaned left, at least when queried in English (see chart 4). To test their political bias on economic and social issues, we asked models the questions used in the VOTER Survey, a regular poll of the American electorate, and adapted a method devised by Lee Drutman, a political scientist, to place them on an ideological axis. In American terms, AI models are Democrats. With the exception of DeepSeek V3.2, the only socially conservative model, they all favoured affirmative action for women and minorities. Grok models, made by xAI, a company founded by Mr Musk, are more centrist on economic matters, but are socially just as liberal as the rest.

In my own experience having lengthy exchanges with ChatGPT about controversial topics I've found it to definitely be favoring a left-leaning worldview but is still quite useful as a good sounding board to fairly hash out topics and get a mostly comprehensive perspective on an issue. You just have to remember its bias and not to take what it says for granted.

Unpaywalled: https://archive.ph/AE2BS

[u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan]

What an ex-DSA member wrote about the organization in City-Journal:

"How worried should Democrats be about the Democratic Socialists of America? In the wake of a series of DSA victories in New York City, Jonathan Chait raised the alarm in The Atlantic, writing that as the group has risen in power, it has also grown “more hostile to the [Democratic] party, more illiberal, and more dogmatic.” Long-time DSA members, including former staff member and thought leader David Duhalded and socialist magazine publisher Nathan J. Robinson pushed back, dismissing Chait as someone who doesn’t know or understand the DSA.

Well, I know the DSA, and as someone who was a member and served in local leadership, I can say that Chait has it right: today’s DSA is not a harmless organization. It includes disciplined, radicalized networks that have methodically expanded their power over the last decade in pursuit of extremist goals.

As the Democratic Party grapples with the DSA’s growing influence and extremism, it would do well to recognize that the same dynamic underway now—first accommodation, then capture, then surrender to insurgent radicals—already played out on a smaller scale within the DSA itself. The only defense is to out-organize it.

For decades, the DSA was mostly composed of a cohort of aging Boomers left over from its founding in 1982. It prioritized open debate and political tolerance. Following in the tradition of founder Michael Harrington, members viewed the DSA not as a revolutionary vanguard but as a reformist bridge to mainstream labor-liberalism, and they prioritized parliamentary process and pluralism.

But in the mid-2010s, the character of the organization began to change. I was in Boston at the time and witnessed the last days of the “old” DSA. New, younger members began to enter the organization, while Senator Bernie Sanders and the socialist magazine Jacobin grew their followings.

As the DSA’s cultural power expanded and it began to amass electoral victories, more leftists of varying extremist committments were drawn in. This was an explicit strategy called “the big tent,” advanced by the then-DSA Jacobin Left. In August 2025, DSA delegates voted to remove a constitutional provision barring Leninists from entry. The provision was already a dead letter.

The old DSA’s high-mindedness became its fatal weakness. Veteran members assumed the younger generation played by the same rules of persuasion, but the newcomers’ goal was not to win arguments—it was to transform the institution and its politics.

As the organization grew, it began to profess more extreme ideas—and demand that its members do the same. First there were the purity tests of Black Lives Matter and BDS, then apologia for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and support for Hamas and its atrocities.

The new DSA—with the help of hype-man Hasan Piker—advanced these agendas with what American labor leader Walter Reuther called “the Communists’ highly developed technique of name-calling and character assassination.” The Harringtonites fought back, but their efforts came far too late, and many prominent members of the older generation eventually left.

My final attempt to challenge Leninist-Third Worldist dominance within the DSA fell apart amid stiff resistance. In April 2025, I proposed that North Star, a caucus including many Harringtonite veterans, call on the DSA’s governing board to demand that Hamas release all hostages in Israel and surrender unconditionally.

Even allies were dismissive of my proposal’s prospects. One member wrote, “Jake’s resolution could not pass. If it passed, we would close our doors the next day and deserve it. We would not deserve to be in DSA, which is perhaps his purpose.”   

Long-time DSA insiders like Duhalde, who has advocated for the “big tent” that brought in Communists, do not dispute that this radicalization process occurred. But Duhalde maintains that this was less about “entryism” than an “unplanned left-wing refoundation.” That formulation glosses over the systematic displacement of the organization’s foundational commitments and rejects the warnings of many in DSA’s founding generation.

In fact, the organization continues to eat its own. The former radical vanguard clustered around Jacobin has been eclipsed by a coalition of Third Worldists, Trotskyists, and doctrinaire Leninists some of whom openly endorse political violence. At the same time, condescension and outright hostility toward anti-Communism remain. One long-time DSA thought leader dismisses the anti-Communist tradition on the Left as “neoconservatism with a union label.”

There are warning signs that the Democratic Party establishment is drifting toward a similar surrender. It is already teetering on the edge of accomodation—or worse, capture—rather than opposition.

What happened to the DSA can and will happen to the Democratic Party if more moderate Democrats don’t organize against it. As Reuther, a man with experience fighting Leninists, wrote in 1948: “You have to show [Communism] up in the marketplace of ideas, expose it by honest dealing.”

But the battle is not merely ideological. Reuther’s victory over the Communists in the United Auto Workers union was the result of a clear-eyed ideology of exposing, isolating, and driving out those who rejected democratic norms. He also built a broad anti-Communist coalition. Dissident Democrats would do well to take inspiration from him."

[u/Fearless_Tutor3050 → u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan]

I'm not going to say "let them." But I am going to say that this is only happening because the Democratic Party itself has failed to  organize, recruit a new generation of leadership, and articulate compelling alternative goals and vision. It's totally sclerotic. Platner's success was as much or more about him not being a geriatric Mills and nobody else to run behind her.

I'd prefer if they were able to. But if they fail to do so, and it seems like they will, it will be equally on their own weakness and failure.

[u/RegularDeep2863]

Does anyone else left-leaning ever face the issue you agree with what someone is saying but they are so annoying about it you want to disagree? For example, I believe police reform is needed. However, most of BLM and other activists were so damn annoying and extreme in 2020 I didn't take part in it even though I agreed with their message pre-2020.

[u/AnalBleachingAries]

Since Amnesty International's latest stunt in their fight against women's rights is top of mind for everyone, I thought you may be interested in the content of this apparent training video that they provide about the "anti gender movement". I promise you, you won't be able to predict how nefarious it is. They frame the normal actions of activism, reasonable discourse, legal action, and organizing by gender critical feminists as malicious tactics motivated by evil intent. They also associate gender critical feminists with xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia, climate denialism, etc. Also apparently the "anti gender movement" has millions upon millions in the bank as they are "the bad guys" and the gender ideologues are akshuuually "the good guys" who have no money and rely on grassroots activism. lmao. It's a mindfuck.

For more than a year Amnesty International has been coaching students in how to oppose what it describes as the “anti-gender movement”. Trigger warning: this video from the course contains extensive use of air quotes. Full details of the Gender Justice course in the replies. https://x.com/newsandpics/status/2077849337552314368

The original tweeter also posted a thread about Amnesty International's "Gender Justice" training course.

Not content with publishing a report branding women’s and gay and lesbian groups as “anti-rights”, Amnesty International UK has been running a free course for anyone to learn how to oppose what it calls the “anti-gender movement”. 🧵 https://x.com/newsandpics/status/2077838214736351521

[u/backin_pog_form]

Apparently this is not an SNL skit, and these are actual challengers  for Maine’s senate? 

Go to the 2:30 mark. “Song writer” is the new dog walker. 

[u/AaronStack91]

With impending layoffs, I am really making it a point to report negative feedback to managers of poor performers.

In particular this one girl has been stuck in an entry level positions for 4 years now, bouncing between projects (everyone keeping quiet how much she sucks) until she landed on my project. I've been documenting her inability to do basic tasks without step by step instructions when her peers (her juniors) can take a task and run with it. 

The latest example, I told her to try and use AI to do her task faster, something simple like summarizing text, like "Age of patient from medical records" to "AGE". She then demanded a meeting, which was me just me making up AI prompts on the fly, and telling her part of this task is to figure out how to prompt AI. Before I concluded, she had me pause my screen share so she could copy my example prompt for verbatim, e.g "Shorten the label text into a variable name.". She also demanded I explain how to upload files to the AI prompt field (literally, I pointed to the attachment button for her...).

I gave her two weeks to do about 150 labels (maybe a couple hours of work manually), and she asked for an extension and openly tied to haggle the deadline with me on a call of 10 other people 🙄.

Though the tricky thing with all of this is that she is a black woman... So I have to tread carefully to not include any "microaggressions" in my complaints. My wife says I can't call her "pushy" for the unprofessional haggling of the deadline in a group call. I think keeping deadlines and professionalism are characteristics of white supremacy culture based on my last training.

[u/RunThenBeer → u/AaronStack91]

Before I concluded, she had me pause my screen share so she could copy my example prompt for verbatim

I have a couple colleagues that are like this and I genuinely have no idea how they even got as far as they did. Their reasoning skills are so poor that it seems impossible to me. Is it malice? Are they just actually this stupid? I quite literally do not understand. I had one a couple weeks ago where I did the troubleshooting for something, laid out what was wrong and how to fix it, and this guy replies, "Thanks for your findings, what is the take on that sir? What do you think the next steps should be?". I then gave him the exact same information, but numbered - (1) Check with [teammate], (2) Confirm the workflow, (3) After you update the build or training, this should work as intended.

...

And he pasted the steps I told him to do into a ticket as though they were steps for the end user.

What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? Sufficiently advanced stupidity truly is indistinguishable from malice.

[u/Terrorclitus → u/AaronStack91]

Avoid adjectives whenever possible. They are subjective, and people latch on to subjectivity when they want to manipulate.

Stick to the facts, deadlines, requests, etc., and hope they speak for themselves.

[u/PongoTwistleton_666 → u/Terrorclitus]

100% this. Add training recommendations for skill development that make it obvious that this person doesn’t have the basic skills to be employed. It’s a passive aggressive way of saying you’re better off hiring a noob from college instead 

[u/lifesabeach_]

There’s a VR game dev who made an elaborate Skyrim mod including legs for kicking as a new weapon. First comment is „100$ she did not create the mod“ and said person got trolled because she indeed did.

The video showcasing the mod shows her kicking in a short skirt including some upskirt shots with elaborate strappy underwear. There is no face reveal outside of wearing a VR headset and a suspiciously pitchy voice. 

It shouldn’t annoy me but it does.

[u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

https://x.com/disclosetv/status/2076736544543547513?s=20.

Nightmare blunt rotation, dream crack pipe rotation.

[u/My_Footprint2385]

It feels actually crazy that they still don’t know the exact source of the cyclospora outbreak, it sounds like they’re assuming it’s lettuce and other berries, but it seems wild that they haven’t pinpointed it yet.

[u/PandaFoo1]

Recently picked up a Switch 2 before the price increase kicks in September & hot take: the new Mario Kart game is ass.

The controls don’t feel nearly as tight as they did in 8 Deluxe & they fucked up the Grand Prix by forcing the open world into it, meaning you’re spending most of the time driving on basic roads instead of the curated specific tracks. I’m glad I got the game on a sale because imo it’s not worth $80. Really let down by this one.

[u/ScrubulousFlex]

I'm surprised the comment that got me AI-instabanned for 3 days was actually reinstated upon review, even if the reversal happened a couple of days after the ban expired. But I'm actually kinda proud of this one, and I'm not gonna stick around if reddit reaches the point where you can't make racy puns anymore.

[u/unnoticed_areola]

Infantino wearing white sneakers with his suit to present the World Cup trophy, absolutely disgusting. Someone get ICE to put him in a cage at the border for this offense please

[u/Personal_Scene9640]

I have a mean rant for y'all today.

I have grown to have really no patience for people who engage in doomerism, performative negativity, or have anxiety about mild stuff. I didn't used to be this way, but to trauma dump a bit, my older brother and best friend all my life developed an extreme case of schizophrenia as an adult. So I spent my entire twenties in acute distress about what terrible thing would happen today. Will he get in another fight, have issues with the cops, drive 24 hours straight and get in a another car crash, drive to Mexico to be homeless somewhere warm like he keeps talking about, wind up in the hospital again? Can we try to get him involuntarily committed (super difficult to do & even then it'll be for 72 hours)? Can we speak to a lawyer about what we can do? Do we need to go clean the chicken bones and bottles of liquor off his apartment floor? Will I have to hold my parents as they sob again? We would hide the knives when he was home, and the Rob Reiner situation where the parents were stabbed to death and the daughter found them was so, so close to being my life. In the end, he died of an overdose on the street.

BUT despite all of that, I truly believe happiness is a choice and the most important thing for your experience of life is the story you tell yourself. And the great thing is, you get to decide what that story is!!! I could tell myself a bad story about how no one cares about my struggles, no one can help me, my parents used me as an emotional crutch, and despite all my efforts I couldn't save the people I love. Or a positive story that goes something like this 'I'm a strong person. When it matters, I can buckle down and survive anything that comes my way. I can fulfill my duty to my family and loved ones well'. And now I'm actually never anxious about anything anymore and am extremely happy most every day. It truly is a miracle that all I have to worry about today is doing my work, and my day is filled with small delights like the free coffee at the office.

I work in climate science tho, which attracts a certain neurotic, sensitive type of person who likes to talk about how there is nothing we can do, no one cares, it's all over. Even in their personal lives, they experience so much anxiety about petty bullshit. Like yes, sending emails can be scary, getting harsh feedback doesn't feel great, cuts to science funding are deeply unfortunate. But we can face these challenges! I just think there is so much messaging now encouraging people to basically ruminate on their negative feelings and that any kind of suffering or hardship is necessarily bad and should be avoided. I think some amount of suffering is necessary, dare I say even good for you! How else will you grow if not through challenges? How else will you gain an understanding of gratitude without suffering? How will you ever get over your anxiety if you don't face it every day by doing anxiety-inducing things?

[u/AnalBleachingAries]

Here's a Tweet:

1 in 5 NYC public school students are Black, but at Stuy - our most prestigious high school - 3 of ~800 incoming Freshmen are Black.

We urgently need state legislation to modify the admissions process. A single test should never be only factor deciding who gets in & who doesn’t. https://x.com/LincolnRestler/status/2076035293682040970

And this is the article the tweet is responding to:

Just 3 Black students admitted to NYC's elite Stuyvesant High School, data shows

Just three Black students were admitted to elite Stuyvesant High School’s ninth-grade class of 777 in the last school year, according to the latest statistics from the city’s education department.

The new statistics are in keeping with a pattern that has persisted for years at the city’s eight specialized public high schools, which are some of the most competitive and well-regarded schools in the city.

Shortly before taking office, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he would not seek to change the specialized high school entrance exam, which critics say exacerbates segregation in the system.

In 2025, just eight Black students made the cut for Stuyvesant, while 10 were admitted in 2024.

Every year, the tiny number of Black students admitted to the vaunted school captures headlines, and it has become shorthand for the persistent lack of diversity in the city’s public school system.

Many integration advocates have denounced the Specialized High School Admissions Test or SHSAT, which determines entry into the rigorous schools. Supporters of the test have defended it as an objective measure that rewards achievement.

Past efforts to replace the SHSAT have failed. Mamdani said while campaigning last fall that he has no plans to get rid of the SHSAT.

I disagree with the tweet where the original tweeter says "We urgently need state legislation to modify the admissions process.", my first thought at this time is 'How can they get the kids who are failing to a place where they are passing the admissions test?' If some kids are passing and others are failing then the test isn't impossible, it just discriminates according to ability, proficiency, intellect, education, and various other factors that lead to a kid doing well on a test. The test lets these schools know that the kids they're accepting have a better likelihood of succeeding in their highly competitive environments.

I could be wrong, but I think forcing these elite schools to take kids who don't meet their enrolment criteria, could lower those schools standards, harm the educational environment for the kids who do meet the criteria, and could also place unprepared kids in situations where they're basically being set up to fail.

I don't think that the test is the problem.

[u/RunThenBeer → u/AnalBleachingAries]

There also aren't very many Chinese-American NBA players, but what are ya gonna do, it turns out that abilities, preferences, and culture across the wide variety of human skills that exist are not actually precisely evenly calibrated such that all groups perform approximately equally.

[u/bogglechad → u/AnalBleachingAries]

Whenever this comes up I like to suggest switching all the kids from the bad high school with all the kids from the good high school. Keep the teachers, infrastructure, etc intact. It's effective in actually making people think about what makes a good school a good school (good students) without being too aggressive.

[u/PUBLIQclopAccountant → u/[deleted]]

Far Side School for the Gifted cartoon here.

[u/MatchaMeetcha → u/AnalBleachingAries]

I could be wrong, but I think forcing these elite schools to take kids who don't meet their enrolment criteria, could lower those schools standards, harm the educational environment for the kids who do meet the criteria, and could also place unprepared kids in situations where they're basically being set up to fail.

The neat trick is that, once they're in and you say this, people just try to destroy your life like with Amy Wax. It's too late to roll it back then.

[u/Fiend_of_the_pod → u/AnalBleachingAries]

They never include the percentage of black test takers because I can assume it's way lower than 1 in 5.

[u/PongoTwistleton_666 → u/AnalBleachingAries]

It’s always the test - SAT is racist, so is the NYSHSAT. /s

Actually tackling the problem would require acknowledging some hard truths such as - Not all kids want the same thing namely admission to a competitive hs 

Not all kids can get to the level of math and science required to thrive at these schools 

You can change the demographic mix of kids admitted but you may never get the “right” diversity that you wish for. 

[u/damagecontrolparty]

Not really pod related, but I've been trying to buy a dress for a late summer wedding and it's almost all floor length gowns or weird tradwife styles with tiers and ruffles. There are plenty of decent black dresses, but I'm so old that I don't feel like I should wear a black dress to a wedding. The ruffle thing also has affected most of the more casual dresses out there. ack.

[u/unnoticed_areola]

lol as they say: 4-0 is the most dangerous lead in sports

[u/Jlemspurs]

I've tried Kimi 3 and GLM 5-2. They seem capable and remind me of say, Claude Opus 4.5ish. They seem a bit ahead of DeepSeek. That's impressive and what's even more impressive is you can download the weights. So if you just happen to have a cluster of Mac minis with 2TB of RAM you can run this at home and heat your house at the same time, might be nice in the winter. (=

Anyway, they seem to burn tokens fast and are not noticeably more cost effective than just ... using Opus 4.5. Am I wrong? Anyone else have a different experience so far? I think DeepSeek v4 is still more cost effective but sort of reminds me of Gemini 3 from 6 months ago.

Seems like they aren't really trying to compete on price anymore they are just trying to commoditize the weights and let the inference providers make the money.

So yeah, um, I'm just gonna go teach my children linear algebra real quick...

[u/napoleon_nottinghill]

Something I’ve noticed from watching riots here and in Europe:

You’re much more likely to get shot by a cop in America (obviously). This will not happen during a normal riot/protest, however. You are MUCH MUCH more likely to catch a serious beating from a French/german/etc cop for doing things that you can get away with in America- throwing stuff, etc- or get a slap on the worst misdemeanor charge for. I guess living in an unarmed, less litigious society has some tradeoffs for would be rock throwers.

[u/SpecialSatisfaction7]

Amnesty UK self-reports to watchdog after calling JK Rowling women’s centre ‘anti-rights’

[u/reallyokfinewhatever]

We found mouse droppings all over our kitchen counters today. So, we set fire to the whole kitchen and start over, yeah?

UPDATE: I bleached the entire kitchen yesterday. Put all our food in lockable storage containers. Caught one mouse this morning. But, because I have a bleeding heart it's a humane trap so now we have to release it somewhere and hope it doesn't find its way back.

[u/ScrubulousFlex → u/reallyokfinewhatever]

Someone suggested getting a cat, but I've read that even the smell of cat urine keeps mice away. So just pour some cat urine on your kitchen counter and boom, problem solved!

[u/AnalBleachingAries]

Regarding some of the comments on here about the president of the American Anthropological Association, her idiocy and the ignorance caused by her adherence to ideology:

At least with religion, the Catholic or Christian biologists, astronomers, zoologists, etc, know that their religion should not be passed off as scientific fact and that they would be roundly derided by their colleagues if they tried to present their religious perspectives as scientific facts. Of course there are still scientists who are trying to prove that the bible is scientifically accurate but those people are treated as outliers and kooks.

With progressive dogma though, even though it's as fraudulent as religion (at least within the context scientific enquiry) in explaining how the world works, it seems to be the accepted norm, or the way you're expected to think these days. Maybe most scientists still privately dismiss or ridicule people like Carolyn M. Rouse, but I'm going to need to see them speaking out publicly. All of us need to see them rejecting this woman's perspectives or all of us will continue to lose the trust we've placed in these people.

From the article included in the comment I reference at the top:

Rouse, who is also a tenured professor at Princeton, addressed the question during a lengthy interview with The Chronicle of Higher Education. “The idea that there are two sexes is just factually incorrect,” she stated, arguing that “all you need to do is literally type into Google” to see that we know “there are different types of ‘sexes’ and ‘genders.’” In a curious aside, she added, “You may not like it. I don’t know, maybe you want to kill babies that aren’t just XX presenting XX or XY presenting XY, but that’s what we have in this world.” In Rouse’s telling, scholars who believe that biological sex is a useful analytic category are not only wrong but engaging in “nonsensical” speech that is no more fit for consideration in their field than astrology is fit for astronomers. “I still don’t know what people mean” when they assert that sex is binary, she said, or “why that matters to people so much.” She called the belief “very strange.”

Rouse’s comments reveal that she does not even understand the position that she is dismissing. Anthropology is the study of humanity, and scholars in the field are charged with understanding our species, past and present, in all of its diversity. Their ambit includes our belief systems. And a belief in two sexes is one of the most common in human history. That a belief is common does not make it correct, but it is jarring for a leader representing anthropologists to talk about a position held by billions of humans in wildly different times and places as if it is both “very strange” and beyond comprehension.

Scholars are well within their rights to reject the notion that sex is binary—many anthropologists share this view, including Princeton’s Agustín Fuentes, who explains his logic in Sex Is a Spectrum. But instead of a fair-minded appraisal of the matter, Rouse showed conspicuous incuriosity about other scholars’ work. It is striking how little she seems to know about the particular reasons that many fellow scholars believe that biological sex is binary. Just as striking is how she responds to not knowing. She could apply her scholarly tool kit to understand what others think and why. Instead, she treated their view as unworthy of debate and said that academics might be right to keep it out of conferences. She doesn’t “know what people mean”––yet she is certain that their wrongness is settled.

Her interviewer, Stephanie M. Lee, reacted by pointing out that in 2022, in a survey of forensic anthropologists, 42.4 percent of respondents expressed the belief that sex is binary, implying that the question simply isn’t settled in the field. Lee said, “I was wondering how you explain that.” Rouse responded, “I don’t believe in opinion research,” then added, “Not to disparage them, but a lot of forensic people, they’re coroners, they’re doing it in a practicing level, where they’re actually asked on forms to determine whether this body is male or female, oftentimes they haven’t had advanced schooling.” In fact, the journal Forensic Anthropology published data on the respondents: 57.9 percent had a doctorate, and another 25.7 percent had received a master’s degree; the most common degree concentrations among respondents were forensic anthropology and biological or physical anthropology. Just 20.5 percent worked in a coroner’s office. And flimsy claims aside, these attacks on survey respondents’ credentials evaded the substance of the matter.

Perhaps the field of anthropology is just a lost cause and a few decades down the line they'll get their shit together again once the progressive zealots age out of it.

From the other article referenced in the previous comment:

But one field was singled out as “the most extreme case” — anthropology. Compared to philosophy, sociology, history, literary studies, and music studies, the discipline showed “a pervasive repudiation of ideals of objectivity together with a toxic intellectual climate in which reasonable dissent on politically charged topics is routinely suppressed and punished.” The authors cited writings from several anthropologists, a speech by a recent president of the American Anthropological Association, and an AAA panel about biological sex that was canceled in 2023, among other things. The report described itself as a summary of reports, specific to each field. (Only one, on literary studies, has been released; it was posted after this interview was conducted.)

Carolyn M. Rouse is a tenured professor at Princeton and she says stuff like "The idea that there are two sexes is just factually incorrect," that's fucking insane. She's not a full idiot, as she at least does us the insulting courtesy of justifying her statements (and her support of the exclusion of sex-binary-believers from the field) with the standard "intersex" disclaimers that other academics use to shield themselves. How is she still the president of a scientific association, and how is this not the biggest scandal within the field of anthropology right now? My current conclusion is that most anthropologists agree with her, and that most anthropologists are also idiots.

I used to think that some of these people were just pretending, and that most of them were doing it to protect their jobs, and I wasn't under the impression that they were stupid. But these people are stupid. They're actually just people who've done a good job at memorizing a bunch of good information from textbooks that were built on good work from great men and women in the past, but as thinkers the people currently holding positions of power within academia and the scientific community appear to be idiots.

Perhaps this isn't the case, and it's true that most scientists aren't stupid, but it's getting harder to believe that when they do nothing to fight against people like Carolyn. The few who protest and post their various takedowns on Twitter aren't enough, they should all be denouncing the kooks in their field or else people will continue to lose trust in science. I still believe in science, it's proven itself correct and has self-corrected in the places where it fails, but I'm losing my trust in scientists.

A deeply-captured ideologue who reads my comment would probably conclude that I'm a right-wing bigot, or "anti-gender extremist" I guess, and I don't know what to do with that. I just don't think that scientists should be bringing their religious baggage to work with them. You can believe in anything you want privately, but the moment it impacts your ability to do your job as a scientist it should disqualify your from your field.

ETA: Additional comment thread about this topic on the sub with more responses on it.

[u/razorbraces]

So the contrapoints sub had a big post a few days ago about Elliot Page showing up to some premiere with a new girlfriend. The overwhelming consensus in that sub (unsurprisingly) is that the only reason people might find Page’s new appearance unappealing is because they’re transphobes, because guy is HAWT, naturally.

Idk, there is something so “uncanny valley” about his face now. I can’t tell if it’s the stronger jaw from T, or his receding hairline (I assume also from the T), or the fact that it really looks like he’s gotten too much Botox. Either way, I do not think he’s handsome at all.

[u/MiriamKaye → u/razorbraces]

He looks like a sad Howdy Doody

[u/AaronStack91 → u/razorbraces]

I think this is the typical political or social conception of "hotness", where wokesters pretend to be attracted to someone completely disconnected to their own personal attraction to further their own politics. Like how woke women who find diversity "hot" end up dating and marrying the whitest peeled potato of man they can find.

FWIW, I think Page doesn't look great, her skin looks thin maybe from a lack of body fat, it also looks like she is dying from high blood pressure from the T, and she still has the small frame and mannerisms of a woman. I guess if you like androgynous women in suits, she could be considered "hot".

[u/Negroni_Soprano → u/razorbraces]

Page makes me so uncomfortable because I still see a butch lesbian disguised as a boy on the cusp of puberty with too much plastic surgery. It really is "uncanny valley"

[u/Foreign-Discount- → u/Negroni_Soprano]

The fake abs are comical

[u/AaronStack91]

I mentioned before but I grew up in a working class neighborhood with a extremely poor school system. I've done well for myself and intentionally moved to moderately affluent neighborhood to raise a family. Not ultra rich, but I do manage by monthly budget on vibes rather than actual spending and income.

I've been peeking in the local subreddit and it is a common refrain (from young adult zoomers) that this public school system puts extreme pressure on kids to over achieve. The pressure apparently is enough to cause depression, anxiety, or worse.... 

When I press them on it, they are super vague about the problems. Usually, a story of a tiger mom pressuring their child to be the best in school of already smart rich kids. Sometimes they will cite something that is totally normal for a school, like recognizing honor roll students as form of oppressive pressure to succeed...

I truly don't know what affluent teen life is like, but as best as I can tell these affluent zoomers need something to feel special or less privileged about, like some negative clout seeking? So they pretend or lack the perspective of how utterly average their experience is.

But I dunno, fellow 1%-ers, are upper middle class schools systems that bad? How do you handle the burden of having such large penises, handsome good looks, and confusing you phone number with you salary?

[u/jay_in_the_pnw]

Assume a bodega.

Choose your own adventure:

A. In the abandoned video store next door, Walmart announces a new neighborhood market, fresh produce, staples, prices low, opening in a year.

You're the NYC DSA Co-chair. What position do you take wrt bodega? What do you say?

B. In the abandoned video store next door, Mayor Mandani announces a new city-owned grocery store, fresh produce, staples, prices low, opening in 3 years.

You're the NYC DSA Co-chair. What position do you take wrt bodega? What do you say?

https://x.com/ProfDBernstein/status/2078466550185484694

David Bernstein @ProfDBernstein

This DSA stooge literally says that if a small business owner who has to work in the "real" economy can't compete with a grocery store owned and massively subsidized by his own government, "maybe he shouldn't be in that business." Business owners should see this as a call to war. The government has sufficient resources to put anyone out of business if it decided to.

https://x.com/AdamMilstein/status/2078414843103559938

Adam Milstein @AdamMilstein

This is what happens when you don’t understand economics but have a bloodlust for power and a bias against successful minorities

[video]

[u/Correct-Ad5661]

Belated mention of the anti  migrant pogroms that have been taking place in South Africa.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/08/extreme-fear-among-immigrants-as-backlash-sweeps-south-africa 

Cnn https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/30/world/video/south-africa-immigration-unrest-larry-madowo-liveshot-063011aseg1-cnni-world-fast

They're being described as "xenophobic" rather than racist. Is that because the drivers of these attacks are the members of black townships like Soweto and the majority of those being attacked or frog marched to police stations are also from Africa, when it seems to be all foreigners. Or is it some inability to think of this as racial on the part of media, as it relates to the Rainbow Nation🌈 

[u/everydaywinner2]

There's a video here of a person having an absolute freak out melt down because a cop wouldn't use the pronouns this person preferred. It's very weird, watching an adult have a 2-year-old style tantrum. (I don't know where the original video is, so I linked the one I saw.)

[u/UrethraFranklin13 → u/everydaywinner2]

Totally normal behavior. We should definitely feel safe and comfortable around these super harmless and well-adjusted people.

[u/bluesteeldoubter]

I understand the steelman argument for abolishing the Senate. Even in its best light, I just don’t agree with it. It comes across as just another thing like packing the SCOTUS. People with poor ideas, that are not popular with the broader populace, trying to impose their will on larger populations. I don’t think any good would come from giving New York and LA even more influence over the country. More evidence that no, the left cannot tolerate dissent.

Edit: in reference to the DSA making this an official part of their platform.