Wiwan-the-farmer - Good Vibes

Diagram of the emotions during the average linux install

Is transitioning even worth it? i see so many posts every day talking about how being a trans woman in todays society is utter hell. I kind of feel like a girl but I could live without it, yknow? i don't need it in order to be happy. It would be nice but it would be so much effort just to be pelted with a barrage of misery every day from vitriolic bigots.

idk im just feeling kinda hopeless abt the whole thing :(

it is more worth it than you can possibly imagine

day 1 at the communal puzzle club: i see a puzzle with a sign next to it that says "please help with our communal puzzle" and i say to myself "don't mind if I do" and did the whole thing

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I’m Christian and respect the order of creation as God intended it but I’m not gonna lie if I could take a massive vat of agar and grow an alive shopping mall made out of red blood and meat and feed it living human bodies to make it expand larger with more shops and amenities, Without hesitation, Without question I would do exactly that

I see a lot of people throw around the term fascist on this website, but I’ve never seen a definition for it, so I’m going to provide one.

The definition of fascism, if you look it up in a dictionary, should sound something like this:

a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and race above the individual, that is associated with an autocratic government

Source: Merriam-Webster

This definition of fascism notably includes both Nazism and Classical Fascism (Italian Fascism) but leaves out other Fascist movements, namely Brazilian Integralism and Falangism.

So to really understand Fascism, you must first understand the “arms” of what makes up a fascist government or movement.

The arms that I was taught are as follows:

1. Corporatism - the belief that class conflict is unnecessary and the various social classes must cooperate and do their job. Please note that it is used in other contexts, and Fascism usually adds on the caveat that the classes cooperate with the good of the state

2. Militarism - Fascist movement traditionally merge state & military, which goes with corporatism to militarize society into strict and rigid social hierarchies. This also has the added effect of making Fascist nations more belligerent but also more unstable, as a fascist military when overstepping its duties often contradicts official government policy (for an example, look up the Marco Polo bridge incident)

3. Hatred of intellectualism - fascist movements dislike intellectualism, as freedom of thought can contradict what they believe to be the one truth. This is an important time to tell you that Fascism is a reactionary movement. Fascists do not like change, and dream of an imagined past ideal society.

4. Violent rhetoric against communism - Fascist movements arose in Europe as a result of the ascendancy of the USSR. Many prominent fascists used the fear of communism to cement their power and initiate purges. Fascists dislike communism because communism advocates for abolition of class structure and social equality, neither of which fit with the nationalist & hierarchical view of Fascists.

5. Ultra-nationalism & supremacy of the state - these two go hand in hand, as Fascists believe their nation to be above all else, superior and unbeatable in every way to every other country in the world. The state is the supreme power in fascist nations, and compliance is not expected as much demanded from all citizens. This often ties into racist views of fascists, who believe their race, similar to their nation, to be superior to all else. It is important to note that some fascist movements were not as extreme in the race department, as Integralism advocated for people of all races co-existing, so long as they were subservient to the states will, and Falangism believed that all Hispanic peoples (Spaniards, non-Brazilian South Americans, Latinos, Mexicans, and Philipinos) were all part of the super race, and should interbreed to create superhumans.

6. One leader - fascist movements have one person who is viewed as supreme & infallible, who wields autocratic authority over every aspect of the state and is treated as though they are the nation in many cases.

7. Feeling of national humiliation - fascist movements often espouse that their country has been slighted or humiliated by their allies or rivals in the past, and that the only way to make up for this stain on national honor is to expel those who humiliated the country (often ethnic minorities) and create a homogeneous and pure society

8. Mass media & propaganda - Fascism uses false statements and misinformation as propaganda to cement their authority and make their influence complete.

So with all of that in mind here are some prominent fascist governments both in history and modern day:

1. Italian fascism, aka classical fascism was started by Benito Mussolini and was the offical ideology of Italy until the end of WWII. Corporatism was the biggest tenant of this branch, along with a strong feeling of national betrayal by the allies in WWI.

2. Nazism, a movement that existed after WWI was taken up by Austrian politician Adolf Hitler, who led Germany until his death in 1945. Nazism called for racial purity, and used anti-Semitic & slavophobic rhetoric, all of which eventually led to the invasion of Poland (a Slavic country with a large Jewish population) and the start of WWII

3. Francoism / Falangism were competing Spanish ultranationalist ideologies following the conclusion of the Spanish civil war. Dictators Franz Franco won out and his ideology would rule Spain until the 1970s. The linguistic discrimination used by Francoism laid the groundwork for the modern Catalan & Basque independence movements

4. The Japanese military ruled Japan in a military dictatorship during WWII, and used fascist rhetoric and tactics, coupled with Japanese society being already arranged in a way to facilitate this, and supreme loyalty to the Emperor. The movement died out after WWII and the US occupation of Japan, as the Japanese military was formally disbanded and downsized immensely

5. Yes by my definition, Trumpism is a fascist movement. Please note that Trump is not a Nazi, he is a fascist and more specifically a Trumpist.

6. There were many smaller and less significant fascist countries during WWII and after, but I don’t know enough about none of them to say definitively if they were / are

"There was an exchange on Twitter a while back where someone said, ‘What is artificial intelligence?' And someone else said, 'A poor choice of words in 1954'," he says. "And, you know, they’re right. I think that if we had chosen a different phrase for it, back in the '50s, we might have avoided a lot of the confusion that we're having now." So if he had to invent a term, what would it be? His answer is instant: applied statistics. "It's genuinely amazing that...these sorts of things can be extracted from a statistical analysis of a large body of text," he says. But, in his view, that doesn't make the tools intelligent. Applied statistics is a far more precise descriptor, "but no one wants to use that term, because it's not as sexy".

'The machines we have now are not conscious', Lunch with the FT, Ted Chiang, by Madhumita Murgia, 3 June/4 June 2023

can you guys stop making posts that i materially agree with but that are worded in ways i find too disagreeable to be reblogged. it rankles

I WAS TRYING TO EDIT THIS BEAR TO BE CHROME TO MAKE A DISCORD SERVER JOKE AND I FUCKED IT UP REAL BAD

Imagine having been born in 1905... And all your life it doesn't fucking stop. The Great War, the Spanish Flu, and then you go out of your mind for 7 years. Everyone is traumatised and nothing matters. Then another crash. And then the rise of fascism, and the War to end all Wars didn't and it's 1945 and you're just about still there. You may have fought or ferried the boys from Dunkirk or sabotaged the Nazi occupiers or worked in the factories and put out fires during the Blitz and you're lucky to be alive, because not all your friends made it. But you are and finally, fucking finally, it stops. It stops. You are tough as nails and you can put that strength to work into building something and you do, and people have cars and can buy icecream and you have a pension fund and the kids have money of their own and no nightmares.

I want that for us. I so want that for us. I want to be the generation that has seen fucking everything and is like a MRSA bug and unfazed and when that Cheeto finally dies, I want us to. Plant the gardens and clean the seas because we can and we want to and we remember some joy, some time of trust even when it got broken and we can say to the 20 somethings "let us show you what we can build, how it can feel."

And maybe Gen beta will take it all for granted like the boomers did, but we can give Gen Z and Alpha some peace because we, and Gen Z and Alpha have seen the Dark Times and fuck that noise.