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argumate:

While mask wearing has become far more common, it is far from universally accepted. Instead, whether to wear a mask or not has become a new front in America’s bitterly partisan culture wars.

In broad terms, wearing a mask has become associated with the progressive side of politics. Not wearing one has become a symbol of conservative defiance.

Americans are compelled to do this for every possible thing huh

 

eightyonekilograms:

It used to be that paragraphs like the above would make me wish for a deadly plague to kill everyone, but now we know that even a deadly plague is not enough. There is no escape from this hell.

I don’t know, from where I’m standing these days (at a Canadian customer-facing “““essential””” job where maybe 10% of customers are masked), [convincing 50% of the population to wear masks in exchange for giving up on the other 50%] vs [what we have now] seems like a genuinely difficult choice.

(especially if you can convince a half that’s disproportionately young and therefore disproportionately likely to be asymptomatic carriers…)

Though I find it a bit confusing that the people known for actually giving a shit about purity and contamination are the people *against* masks. I mean, I suppose there’s a distrust-of-hostile-authorities thing at play here, but that seriously outweighs the filth?

Tags:

#I used to enjoy my work! #it wasn’t a Career (and I didn’t intend for it to be) #but it was easy and it helped people #now it’s dangerous and composed entirely of assholes #(it’s still rare for people to be rude to me in the *ordinary* sense) #(but under the circumstances just showing up is an asshole move) #reply via reblog #home of the brave #politics cw #discourse cw? #illness tw #covid19 #in which Brin has a job

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tototavros:

being adjacent to cancel-heavy (or at least, cancel-anxious) groups for a few years has unfortunately infected me with an ability to write shitty thinkpiece theses, the two today so far have been “male/female designations of cables are transphobic” and “my sharona is pedophilic”

 

rendakuenthusiast:

I had the same thought re: cables some years ago but without the assumption that transphobia is bad or that people shouldn’t resist trans activists who try to make them stop referring to cables that way.

 

alexanderrm:

In the same vein of thought where wanting to know a stranger’s assigned gender at birth as soon as you meet them is equivalent to wanting to know what’s in their underwear or their private medical history, maybe there’s a hot take to be had that we should call them “penis” and “vagina” cables, which takes no longer to say, and is what we actually mean when we say “male/female” cables.

 

tototavros:

That would work, except no way in hell am I going to ask “Hey, anyone got any usb-vagina-wall-outlet-penis or micro-usb-penis-wall-outlet-penis cords?” in the office slack

 

rustingbridges:

I wouldn’t say that in the office, but on the other hand my girlfriend will absolutely live to regret your post

 

brin-bellway:

Huh. @tototavros, you *would* be willing to call them “male” and “female” in the office slack? I wouldn’t be comfortable with that myself: to me “male” and “female” feels like the barest fig leaf over the obvious genitalia references, still very crude overall.

(And indeed, “WTF, why are you referring to them so crudely” was my very first thought the first time I heard someone refer to them that way in my mid to late teens. I was boggled that she was not calling them “prongs” and “outlets” (sometimes “plugs” and “sockets”, though “plug” can be ambiguous as it is also an umbrella term) as I considered to be the norm, and even more boggled when I worked out that *most* subcultures in my meta-cultural neighbourhood consider comparing plugs to genitals to be the *standard* way of referring to them.)

 

shieldfoss:

According to google, the correct terminology ( in Danish ) translates into “male connector” in English (and I’ve been using male/female connector when writing in English since forever)

So

I mean

Yeah I’d absolutely use the correct technical terminology in places where I wouldn’t use “penis” and “vagina” terminology, even though it’s clearly just a figleaf for the exact same meaning.

2ac1cb8339202706457181b26f2d4331dd37cc3b

(see also)

—

…you seem upset that my dialect has different terminology for this, and that it is non-obvious to an outsider that male/female dialects (or languages) allow their terms in *every* context including contexts famously scrupulous about not discussing sexuality?

(From my perspective, it would not have surprised me in the least if male/female dialects had some painfully circumlocutious politically-correct euphemism *specifically* for use in offices: indeed, it seemed the most likely outcome. Since my native dialect is already so politically correct, I’d figured I could afford to wait until I actually *got* an office job to confirm this: I could just ask somebody for a double-outletted adapter and they’d teach me the local euphemisms then.)

Tags:

#reply via reblog #language #our roads may be golden or broken or lost #gender #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #discourse cw #scrupulosity cw? #nsfw text

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tototavros:

being adjacent to cancel-heavy (or at least, cancel-anxious) groups for a few years has unfortunately infected me with an ability to write shitty thinkpiece theses, the two today so far have been “male/female designations of cables are transphobic” and “my sharona is pedophilic”

 

rendakuenthusiast:

I had the same thought re: cables some years ago but without the assumption that transphobia is bad or that people shouldn’t resist trans activists who try to make them stop referring to cables that way.

 

alexanderrm:

In the same vein of thought where wanting to know a stranger’s assigned gender at birth as soon as you meet them is equivalent to wanting to know what’s in their underwear or their private medical history, maybe there’s a hot take to be had that we should call them “penis” and “vagina” cables, which takes no longer to say, and is what we actually mean when we say “male/female” cables.

 

tototavros:

That would work, except no way in hell am I going to ask “Hey, anyone got any usb-vagina-wall-outlet-penis or micro-usb-penis-wall-outlet-penis cords?” in the office slack

 

rustingbridges:

I wouldn’t say that in the office, but on the other hand my girlfriend will absolutely live to regret your post

 

brin-bellway:

Huh. @tototavros, you *would* be willing to call them “male” and “female” in the office slack? I wouldn’t be comfortable with that myself: to me “male” and “female” feels like the barest fig leaf over the obvious genitalia references, still very crude overall.

(And indeed, “WTF, why are you referring to them so crudely” was my very first thought the first time I heard someone refer to them that way in my mid to late teens. I was boggled that she was not calling them “prongs” and “outlets” (sometimes “plugs” and “sockets”, though “plug” can be ambiguous as it is also an umbrella term) as I considered to be the norm, and even more boggled when I worked out that *most* subcultures in my meta-cultural neighbourhood consider comparing plugs to genitals to be the *standard* way of referring to them.)

 

tototavros:

Yes, mostly because I don’t know how to refer to them otherwise

(gf has informed me that male = connector, female = port works but i think that’d be too confusing)

#plug and socket are even more ambiguous imo

(see also)

—

TBH, it was pretty unnerving to learn that the prong/outlet dichotomy is not a widespread norm. Like, what *else* do I think is just how things are, until someday somebody who isn’t culturally SJ has no idea what I’m talking about and I fall face-first into an inferential crevasse?

@eightyonekilograms, I’m intellectually aware now that a great many dialects consider this terminology unremarkable (though I’d thought offices might be unusually strict, at least enough to make it uncomfortable on the part of the *speaker* even if none of the listeners actually cared), and while I generally don’t use it myself I try not to let my “this is strange and distasteful” reaction show. (I don’t think I even said anything about it to the *first* person, and she was likely too distracted to see the look on my face.)

Tags:

#reply via reblog #language #our roads may be golden or broken or lost #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #gender #nsfw text #scrupulosity cw?

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~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

tototavros:

being adjacent to cancel-heavy (or at least, cancel-anxious) groups for a few years has unfortunately infected me with an ability to write shitty thinkpiece theses, the two today so far have been “male/female designations of cables are transphobic” and “my sharona is pedophilic”

 

rendakuenthusiast:

I had the same thought re: cables some years ago but without the assumption that transphobia is bad or that people shouldn’t resist trans activists who try to make them stop referring to cables that way.

 

alexanderrm:

In the same vein of thought where wanting to know a stranger’s assigned gender at birth as soon as you meet them is equivalent to wanting to know what’s in their underwear or their private medical history, maybe there’s a hot take to be had that we should call them “penis” and “vagina” cables, which takes no longer to say, and is what we actually mean when we say “male/female” cables.

 

tototavros:

That would work, except no way in hell am I going to ask “Hey, anyone got any usb-vagina-wall-outlet-penis or micro-usb-penis-wall-outlet-penis cords?” in the office slack

 

rustingbridges:

I wouldn’t say that in the office, but on the other hand my girlfriend will absolutely live to regret your post

Huh. @tototavros, you *would* be willing to call them “male” and “female” in the office slack? I wouldn’t be comfortable with that myself: to me “male” and “female” feels like the barest fig leaf over the obvious genitalia references, still very crude overall.

(And indeed, “WTF, why are you referring to them so crudely” was my very first thought the first time I heard someone refer to them that way in my mid to late teens. I was boggled that she was not calling them “prongs” and “outlets” (sometimes “plugs” and “sockets”, though “plug” can be ambiguous as it is also an umbrella term) as I considered to be the norm, and even more boggled when I worked out that *most* subcultures in my meta-cultural neighbourhood consider comparing plugs to genitals to be the *standard* way of referring to them.)

Tags:

#nsfw text #language #our roads may be golden or broken or lost #reply via reblog #gender #discourse cw?

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rustingbridges:

ok but @official-kircheis @candleprism @voxette-vk @invertedporcupine and anyone else who ranked bread so lowly – what kind of bread are you eating?

actually I’m curious about this in a general sense. what kind of bread do people really eat

I didn’t actually reblog that meme thread but my preference ranking is [potatoes, pasta, bread, rice], so:

The example of bread I had in mind when ranking them was Loblaws white baguettes. Although, the kind of bread I actually had most recently was Farm Boy garlic bread, which is much better than plain white (even Furlani garlic bread is better than plain white). Not enough to get it a higher ranking, though.

Don’t get me wrong, all four of these starches are very good, it’s just that potatoes and pasta are even better.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #food #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #I might go have some mashed potatoes right now #I hear there’s some leftovers in the fridge

Updates to how we enforce our Community Guidelines on hate speech

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

staff:

Tumblr wouldn’t feel like much if it were not for the passionate community filling up our dashboards. You are the reason people turn to Tumblr for a laugh or for a little human connection. You are why Tumblr feels like a home for so many. You care about this place, and you let us know when something doesn’t feel right. Many of you have called on us to further reevaluate how we deal with hate speech, particularly hate speech from Nazis or other white supremacist groups. Today we’re letting you know that we heard you, and we are taking further action.

We’ve listened to your feedback and have reassessed how we can more effectively remove hateful content from Tumblr. In our own research, and from your helpful reports, we found that much of the existing hate speech stemmed from blogs that have actually already been terminated. While their original posts were deleted upon blog termination, the content of those posts still lived on in reblogs. Those reblogs rarely contained the kind of counter-speech that serves to keep hateful rhetoric in check, so we’re changing how we deal with them.

We identified nearly a thousand blogs that were previously suspended for blatantly violating our policies against hate speech. Most of them were Nazi-related blogs. Earlier this week, we began the process of removing all reblogs stemming from the original posts on those previously suspended blogs—that’s approximately 4.47M reblogs being removed from Tumblr. 

Moving forward, we will evaluate all blogs suspended for hate speech, and consider mass reblog deletion when appropriate. 

Consulting outside experts 

We wouldn’t make a change like this without considering the impact to your freedom of expression. We do not want to silence those who are providing educational and necessary counter-arguments to hate speech. We reviewed our approach with a variety of outside groups and experts to make sure we have aligned with their recommended best practices.

There’s no silver bullet solution, AI, or algorithm that can perfectly target hate speech. That’s why we have a dedicated Trust & Safety team, and why we have an easy way for you to report any hate speech you do see.

If you see something on Tumblr that violates our Community Guidelines, please report it to our Trust & Safety team for review.

Lastly…

We are, and will always remain, steadfast believers in free speech. Tumblr is a place where you can be yourself and express your opinions. Hate speech is not conducive to that. When hate speech goes unchecked, it eventually silences the voices that add kindness and value to our society. That’s not the kind of Tumblr any of us want. 

Thank you for speaking up. Please continue to help us make Tumblr the place you want it to be.

<3

>>Earlier this week, we began the process of removing all reblogs stemming from the original posts on those previously suspended blogs—that’s approximately 4.47M reblogs being removed from Tumblr.<<

So by the sound of it, if you’ve reblogged any debunkings or tangents or possibly even unrelated posts from a blog that *also* posted hate speech (by whatever standards they’re using for that), it’s getting thrown down the memory hole.

Hey guys, I wrote a Tumblr reblog once disagreeing with the idea that deleting an OP blog should delete all of its posts’ reblogs. Do you know what happened to my post? It fucking vanished [link]. It lives on because I personally ensured it.

Now is a good time to remind everyone that tumblr-utils [link] incremental backups do not delete old posts if the original gets deleted, and the Wayback Machine sure as hell does not delete them.

Tags:

#AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #amnesia cw #reply via reblog #The Great Tumblr Apocalypse #PSA #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #federated Tumblr clone when

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argumate:

whenever I’m faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem I’m always looking for the clever hack that can resolve it by a neat use of lateral thinking such that the solution is ingenious and yet much simpler than you would expect, and I don’t know where I picked up this habit because it has literally never worked, the solution always ends up being do a shit-ton of work and then do a shit-ton more work and then spend years polishing the mess until it doesn’t matter any more.

 

etiragram:

I don’t know where I picked up this habit 

I know where I have: from preparing for math tests and programming interviews!

Huh, I have the *opposite* problem. I keep doing things in obvious-but-tedious ways and then later finding out that there was a clever way that would have solved it in thirty seconds. I’ve started deliberately trying to keep in mind “there might be an easier way of doing this, look around for one first before resorting to the long way”.

Hmm. Maybe this is actually a slightly different thing: you guys are over-applying *lateral thinking*, while I am under-applying *automation*.

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#reply via reblog #embarrassment squick? #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #proud citizen of The Future #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #is where this usually tends to come up

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

whitepeopletwitter:

f1d5bbccd3e9561dda1730bda677525cbb62ef13

 

sigmaleph:

idk i think if people were dying for the second time that might imply some good news

If my dad dies of this, it will be his second death. He died the first time of a heart attack in 1994. Heart attacks are among the easier kinds of death to undo: even with our all-too-limited medical tech, we can sometimes manage it. In his case, they could.

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#reply via reblog #death tw #transhumanism #covid19 #medical cw #trump cw #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #proud citizen of The Future

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rustingbridges:

brin-bellway:

Rustingbridges Icon

@rustingbridges replied to your photo “The secret to good matzah is to tell the “egg matzah is ~only for…”

I know what a yarmulke is but I didn’t know kippah

although, to be entirely fair, I could not have spelled yarmulke

I had the advantage of encountering it for the first time in a written context (a joke-compilation newsletter).

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#reply via reblog #Judaism #clothing #language