Check Your Privilege – Claire's Essays - "I read a post from a man named Asim Qureshi, CEO of Jibble (an employee time clock app):
“Several years ago, I encourage a friend to take more risks in his career. He responded, “I’m supporting my parents, sibling, my wife and kids. I mess up, we’re out in the street.” I didn’t encourage him again. Now, over the years, many have told me that they really respect as I gave up a fantastic career to pursue my dream of becoming an entrepreneur. The reality is that it was nothing more than privilege at play—unlike many, including my friend, I had the luxury of being able to fail. I also had a wife that encourage me to go for it. Risks aren’t as risky for those that can afford to take them—heroism is often nothing more than the omission of details.”
I would like to add a comment from a man named John David Co on Facebook:
“This is just like all those posts saying that the rich work smart while the poor work hard. Most people who cannot take chances and experiment with something new. They are too busy making ends meet to devote time or effort to anything else. For example, who is saying that, for example, Jeff Bezos used to be broke, he wasn’t really broke. He got his parents to invest $250,000 in Amazon when it was starting out. That’s a heck of a safety net, so I’m pretty sure he wasn’t really scared of failing. Those who are blessed or privileged need to stop making it seem like it is other’s people’s choice of fault that they are poor. For some that might be true. But for the vast majority, it is just fortunate that the deck is stacked against them from the very start.”"
The real privilege. Of course those who mythologise rags to riches will mock this
Gratitude Walking Through Walmart : TheMotte - "I cried of gratitude while walking through Walmart.
My parents grew up in communist Romania, for my mom eating bananas was something rare and special, she was ecstatic every time her family was able to buy some. As a young boy, my dad would spend hours waiting in line (and defending his position against other young boys) for the privilege of being allowed to exchange money for food. Some people were luckier and happened to be friends with the food store clerks (or used bribes): they got advance notice when new items were in stock. Money wasn't the problem (the Party, in their infinite benevolence, understood that the people needed to be able to afford bread, and so kept the prices low), everyone had money, the problem was finding food to exchange against that money. If your family had a car, it was the same state-manufactured car , in the same gray color as everyone else's, my grandparents spent 3 years on a wait-list (having already paid, of course) before the State deigned deliver it to them. When my grandfather came to a Canadian suburb to see the house his engineer son had just bought, he asked how many other families we were sharing it with. When he saw the sapphire-blue pool in our backyard, he started crying. I've also recently started reading The Gulag Archipelago, detailing the forced labour camp system in the Soviet Union. This book is making me feel the most intense emotions I've ever felt reading a book: blood-boiling rage, bone-deep indignation and strongest of all an overwhelming sense of duty to value the freedom that I have. I can feel the 60 million people who would have liked nothing more in life than to have the chance to experience what I would consider abject failure... So I'm walking through Walmart, seeing the 30 different choices of chocolate bars, wall-to-wall offerings of chips, perpetually-filled bread-racks and meat counters, all the eggs, milk and butter that I could ever want, giant multinational corporations fiercely fighting for the right to sell me the tastiest food from every part of the world at the best price possible. I start to smile and this great sense of gratitude radiates from my upper-back. Suddenly my problems don't seem so large anymore, and I know that everything is going to be alright. Discussions of the culture war here can get quite depressive and hopeless, and its good to sometimes remember just what the stakes are, just how bad things can get, and how good they are right now."
The Communists will get very upset and accuse him of being a CIA agent
Meme - "DENIAL: I can't believe it's not butter
ANGER: What, not butter!
BARGAINING: Could it be butter?
DEPRESSION: this is not butter
ACCEPTANCE: unsalted margarine"
Facebook - "PM Lee in his party convention speech commended the late Mr Lionel De Souza, a former police Sargeant, who was a colourful character. The PAP also granted him a posthumous award for the services he rendered to them over the years. Mr de Souza was dismissed from the SPF in 1986 for using excessive force - but appealed successfully on the ground of bias of the investigator. He was well-known for using aggressive and threatening language online in recent years... I myself have personally been at the receiving end of one such missive from Mr de Souza some years ago. If this is the kind of man that the PAP regards as exemplifying its party values, I can only express dismay and disappointment."
Meme - Lionel de Souza: "To get you moron. You must be CSJ'S foreign handler. I hope our intelligence confirm this and ban you from entering Singapore. Alternatively, you must be a Singaporean traitor who has no guts but to use a white man's identity. We will trace you and settle the score with you"
Meme - "In your own words, how would you describe Libertarians?"
"House cats. They are convinced of their fierce independence while utterly dependent on a system they don't appreciate or understand."
My husband is the moderator for a few different subreddits, and he genuinely thinks it’s a job : TrueOffMyChest - "my husband refuses to look for a job even though I think it would be good for him (And we could use the additional income), but he just says he’s, “got too much on his plate already”. That being monitoring these stupid subreddits. And Everytime I bring it up he claims what he’s doing is unpaid labor similar to that of a homemaker. But he doesn’t clean or cook or do any of that the way he used to. He just monitors his stupid subreddits. I don’t know what to do. Sometimes I want to leave him because I believe I may not be able to reach him."
This explains why Facebook group admins and mods (and similar) are such assholes
Meme - "Last book that made you cry"
"University Physics with Modern Physics 14th Edition by Hugh D. Young, Roger A. Freedman"
Roger Freedman: "No doubt tears of joy."
Meme - "She passed on the scalloped potatoes because, “I don’t really Iike seafood.” It was at that moment where I knew she was dumb enough to sleep with me."
Meme - "Quantum superposition doggo: The dog is sitting, standing and laying at the same time."
Meme - "Messenger Text and Video Chat for Free
Your review: Bijay Kumar Sahoo - "What a stupid app girls don't even reply.""
Meme - "Many right wingers in today's world were lefties just a few short years ago. They are not cult members. In fact, they have all lost friends and family. They LEFT a cult. Anyone who has been through it can tell you that it takes courage. It is a frightening, lonely experience"
"You Find It Offensive? I Find It Funny, That's why I'm happier than you" T-shirt
Meme - ""I WENT TO COMIC CON AS 'UNCLE BEN'.
THE GOAL: DIE IN FRONT OF AS MANY SPIDERMEN AS POSSIBLE.""
Bloke, 26, confuses ladies on Tinder by joking about his 'tiny penis' - "Alex, 26, was applauded for using self-deprecating humour to lure in potential dates. Alex wrote: "A truth and a lie: I have a tiny penis, I've never been to France." The photo shows the singleton standing in Paris with the Eiffel Tower behind him suggesting that the France comment is the lie and the tiny penis one is the truth."
Animals in Beijing zoo imitate humans fighting after seeing tourists' epic brawl
Meme - "When you survive a bear attack and then hit up your favorite Starbucks to celebrate."
Who Should Be Called Dr.? Probably Not Jill Biden, Just as Lawyers Like Me Aren't - " As best I can tell, there have been two rival customs on such matters in American life. (I speak here solely of the U.S. customs.) Under the first, only people with M.D.s (or perhaps people with any doctorate in a medical field, such as dentists) are called "Dr.," in those contexts that call for a title. Under the second, people with Ph.D.s are called "Dr." as well (at least if they so prefer). My sense is that this is the more common approach these days, though the matter seems unclear. Now that leaves the question: What to call people who have other non-medical degrees that are labeled "doctorates"? The most common such degree is the one my wife and I have, as lawyers: A J.D., which means Juris Doctor. (Unlike in other fields, most law professors don't have a Ph.D. or the rare specialized legal Ph.D. analogs, like a J.S.D.) And lawyers in America definitely don't get called "Dr." Then there is the "Ed.D." To my knowledge, there isn't a fixed custom among the general public as to whether to call people with Ed.D.s "Dr.," the way there is a fixed custom as to people with J.D.s (for whom, again, the answer is "no no no"). I assume there isn't such a custom in part because Ed.D.s aren't that common. There's also the complication that Ed.D.s may differ at different institutions. But at the University of Delaware, where Jill Biden got her Ed.D. in Educational Leadership, the Ed.D. appears much more like a J.D. (or perhaps a M.S. or M.A.) than like a Ph.D. The Ph.D. program is a full-time 4-5 year program; the Ed.D. program is a part-time 3-4 year program (though I should note that a master's degree is required for entry). Recall that a J.D. is generally 3 years full-time, though without at thesis; M.S.s and M.A.s tend to be 1½ to 2 years full-time, with a thesis... And while the hallmark of a Ph.D. is generally a dissertation that constitutes a substantial original work of scholarship—something that adds materially to the body of the discipline's theoretical knowledge—the Delaware Ed.D. does not require that... Jill Biden doubtless worked hard for her Ed.D., as people generally work hard for their M.S.s and M.A.s (generally 1½-to-2-year full-time degrees) or for their J.D.s (again, 3-year full-time degrees). She doubtless worked hard on her thesis, as people generally work hard on their masters' theses or law review student articles (not required for a J.D., but something many students do write). But I don't see a basis for treating her Ed.D. as similar to a Ph.D. (which many people do treat as entitling the holder to the title "Dr.") rather than to a J.D. Or if Ed.D.s from Delaware-like programs are going to be called "Dr.," it's hard to see why lawyers (at least ones who have written a substantial law review article while in law school) don't merit the label "Dr." as well. An aside: In many contexts, even Ph.D.s aren't called "Dr.," as this article (Hontas Farmer, Science 2.0) notes—we say "Albert Einstein" rather than "Dr. Albert Einstein""
Jill Biden Said Harris Could 'Go Fuck' Herself' After Debate Attack
Why You Should Never Rinse Your Dishes Before Putting Them in the Dishwasher - "If you give your plates and bowls a quick rinse before sticking them in the dishwasher, you may be surprised (and disgusted) to learn that it doesn’t make them any cleaner. In fact, in many cases, it does the opposite... One of the arguments against pre-rinsing is that certain detergents are designed to cling to food particles, as the Cascade detergent brand informed The Wall Street Journal in 2015. Without a surface to stick to, your dishes won’t get as squeaky clean. Consumer Reports offers another explanation. According to the product-testing magazine, newer dishwashers—those purchased within the last five years or so—won’t wash your dishes for very long if the sensors in the machine don’t detect much dirt in the water. “When that happens, the dishwasher gives them just a light wash, and items come out less than sparkling,” Consumer Reports's Ed Perratore wrote in 2016. “To avoid that lackluster result, don’t rinse; just scrape off bits of loose food.” There’s also a major environmental factor to consider. One mind-blogging statistic from Consumer Reports states that the average person wastes 6000 gallons of water a year by pre-rinsing. Most dishwasher machines use just 3 to 5 gallons of water per load, while the average person uses about 27 gallons when washing dishes by hand"
Twitter thread dispels myth about famous billionaires starting out from nothing - "Reacting to Jon Erlichman's tweet about how Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in his garage, Smith wrote: "Cute propaganda. In reality, Bezos's mommy and daddy gave him $245,573 to stop Amazon from failing in 1995, but you'd never know it from listening to our right-wing mainstream media that blames poverty on personal failure and attributes wealth to personal virtue." "You can find this in the backstory of almost every billionaire. The story of Bill Gates is told as if he was a normal guy who dropped out of college to pursue his dream when in reality his mom Mary Gates, the president of United Way, convinced IBM to hire Microsoft to build an OS," Smith continued. "Gates is a talented individual but his career break wouldn’t have happened if he wasn’t the child of wealthy, well-connected parents who were able to convince IBM to hire the-then obscure Microsoft to build an OS. He likely wouldn’t be a billionaire if he was born working-class."... Mark Zuckerberg's wealthy parents sent him to Phillips Exeter Academy (tuition: almost $57,000 for boarding) and got software developer David Newman to give him private tutoring in computer science before he even entered college"
Many Americans are going to be upset. Too bad OP went on a communist rant about exploitation
Batman Existed in Mesoamerican Mythology and His Name Was Camazotz
Ancient Mud Reveals an Explanation for Sudden Collapse of the Mayan Empire - " Deforestation, overpopulation, and extreme drought have all been proposed as the reason for the empire’s collapse. The most probable of those, argue the University of Cambridge and University of Florida scientists in their study, is drought"
Mosquito Hordes: How a Pesky Insect Destroyed the ‘Almost’ Invincible Mongol Empire - "During the summer and fall of 1241, the majority of the Mongol forces were resting on the Hungarian plains. Although the previous years had been unseasonably warm and dry, the spring and summer of 1241 were unusually damp, with higher amounts of precipitation than usual turning the formerly dry Magyar grasslands of eastern Europe into a marshy morass and a minefield of malarial mosquitoes. For the Mongol military machine, the negative repercussions of this climate change created the perfect storm to shelter Europe. For starters, the quagmire and high water table robbed the Mongols of the essential grazing grounds and pasturelands for their innumerable horses, which were the crux of their military prowess. The unusually high humidity also caused Mongol bows to falter... Although the Mongols did have some limited success, including brief stopovers in Aleppo and Damascus, they were repeatedly forced to retreat in the face of malaria, additional disease, and powerful defensive coalitions. General Anopheles, the guardian of Christian Rome, also garrisoned the Holy Land for Islam... During his southern campaigns beginning in 1285, Kublai disregarded the customary tactic of withdrawing his forces to the nonmalarial north during the summer months. As a result, his marching columns totaling roughly 90,000 men were met by an entrenched mosquito defender. Malaria ravaged his armies throughout southern China and Vietnam, inflicting heavy losses and forcing a complete abandonment of his designs on the region by 1288. A straggling, sickly force of only 20,000 survivors staggered northward to Mongolia. This retreat from Southeast Asia and the corresponding collapse of the powerful Hindu-Buddhist Khmer civilization were both triggered by the mosquito"
Meme - "SEA TURTLES CAN LIVE FOR YEARS
WHAT'S THE SECRET TO A LONG LIFE?
A BURDEN-FREE LIFE"
"MOMMY?"
"NOPE"
The Hunt For Caesar's Killers | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra - "‘What were the assassins’ motivations? Why did they come to the conclusion that Caesar had to die?’
‘They were mixed motivations. Some were personal, some financial, but they were fundamentally political and philosophical. And one of the differences between then and most of now, is that there were, but not very interested in consequences. They were looking for what was the right thing to do. Brutus and Cassius and most of the people that we, whose ideas we can understand, were very concerned with what was right, what would make them look good in history, particularly to Brutus, and were more interested in that, then at what would happen afterwards, which is why often so often that assassins go wrong by their own terms, because often they, people assassinate other people in order to achieve certain ends, but very rarely do they then take place, often the opposite of the ends take place. And sometimes it's because actually the people who will steel themselves to assassinate someone are more interested and more driven by their own personal moral concerns, political concerns, and sometimes personal pique and the fact that the, the man has had an affair with your wife or whatever. I mean, they're more driven by that than necessarily what is going to happen after Caesar or anybody else is dead... Caesar was killed by people who were mostly his friends and supporters, or people who'd been very close to him... some of them knew him very well, and thought they had fought for him and done things for him in short and thought that they should have done better as a result. They were just jealous… Caesar was famous for his clemency and he would, he would often reward people who had been his enemies, he thought that made him look good, and was quite effective, because he'd been fighting a very bitter Civil War against Pompey. And they were basically the same people on, you know, on different sides. So he rewarded a lot of people who hadn't been on his side. Therefore, the people who had been on his side got got angry too...
It was all political. One of the biggest problems of, when you think about modern assassination is that the people who write about it always seem to suggest that the people are mad in some way or mentally disturbed or deranged. And that's, is helpful, often for both sides in arguments because the establishment never want to think that anybody who's an assassin has gone, got any any reasonable or rational excuse for doing it, because that would suggested there could be good reasons for killing, killing leaders. And the lawyers and the defenders of the person who has done the assassination often want to suggest that they're mad in order to get them off, get them off the death penalty or somehow lessen their sentence or make them, people feel less angry with them. So, to some extent, the pure political, philosophical political motivation of assassins can often be rubbed out from both sides of the page. And there's no doubt that these, the men who killed Julius Caesar, they all killed him together. They didn't get anybody else to kill him, they didn't get slaves and get professional assassins, they didn't get, they didn't poison him, you know get the servants to put the poison in the, in the wine. They wanted to kill him together, and they use short daggers. That's one of the reasons why they use the daggers when it would be much easier to kill Caesar with a simple sword class, it would probably be much more reliable. But each, 20, we don't know how exactly how many of them there were. But it was very important to them that this large group of mainly upper class men should all get a dagger in. It was a joint enterprise and that meant it was political, it meant it was an exercise on one part of the policy, politic against another'...
‘What do you think it would have been like to have been a journalist reporting on these events 2000 years ago?’
‘Journalism played no, they had no, the Romans had no idea of what we would call journalism that they were, they did a lot of writing to support their own interests, and almost everybody who was a big deal was some sort of writer. You weren't really a fully rounded Roman leader or soldier or politician unless you were a writer, certainly a speaker, often a poet. And often a philosopher too’"
Elon Musk Suggests Mean Tweet From California Rep Lorena Gonzalez Prompted Tesla Move to Austin, Texas - "Tesla founder Elon Musk indicated Friday that his decision to relocate the company to Texas was prompted by a California lawmaker’s mean tweet. In May 2020, when the pandemic was raging and Musk opened Tesla’s factory in defiance of local restrictions, California Assemblywoman Lorena S. Gonzalez tweeted “F*k Elon Musk.”
Elon Musk on Twitter - "@LorenaSGonzalez Message received"
Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts | Facebook - "The Facebook whistleblower who testified before Congress is being represented by the Democrats top PR and legal resources. Considering that Facebook is generally ‘kind’ to the Democrats there is likely more to this story than is publicly known.
——-
“In addition, Human Events has learned that according to her personal advocacy website, Haugen states that in 2020 she was a member of Facebook’s internal Civic Integrity team. That means in all likelihood she was part of the team that made the controversial decision to ban the bombshell Hunter Biden laptop story by the New York Post from Facebook in October 2020, a crucial point of the election. This was one of the most significant October Surprises in U.S. political history, and Facebook and Twitter made the decision to ban it without evidence amid rumors that the laptop was tied to Russian intelligence. Those rumors ended up being disinformation, and were all proved false.” “For now, Haugen continues to be represented by Jen Psaki’s PR firm and Eric Ciaramella’s legal team.”"
ELDER: Facebook 'whistleblower' blows off the real scandal | Toronto Sun - "Stop the presses: Facebook seeks to maximize profits. Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, appeared on “60 Minutes,” where she slammed Facebook, a publicly owned corporation, for “optimizing for content that gets engagement.” In other words, FB tries to keep users on its platform as long as possible to make money, something that a publicly held company has a fiduciary obligation to shareholders to do... How is this different from any other medium, whether television, cable television, radio, talk radio, newspapers, tabloids or other media? Recall the adage about newspapers: “If it bleeds it leads.” As a talk radio host for nearly 30 years, I know that ratings evaluate not just how many people listen, but for how long they listen. It’s a major part of the formula that determines the popularity of any given show. The more popular the show, the more advertisers it attracts. The more advertisers a show attracts, the more advertisers pay. In short, Facebook finds that getting people riled up makes them spend more time getting riled up, the very method that “60 Minutes” pursues for ratings. Indeed, “60 Minutes” heavily promoted this supposed “bombshell” interview with the whistleblower. The real scandal, not even hinted at by Haugen or “60 Minutes,” is the obvious suppression of conservative content by Facebook, Twitter and the left-wing “news” media... Never mind that Hillary Clinton repeatedly called the 2016 election “stolen” and Trump “illegitimate.” Several people engaged in street violence in many cities when Trump got elected and more than 200 protesters were arrested when Trump was inaugurated. Two-thirds of Democrats, according to a March 2018 YouGov poll, falsely believe Russia “tampered with vote tallies” in the 2016 election. True, according to a Quinnipiac University poll early this year, 76% of self-identified Republicans believe there was “widespread fraud in the 2020 election.” But, according to a 2018 Gallup poll, 78% of Democrats believed Russians not only “interfered” in 2016, but “changed the outcome” of that election. So, more Democrats consider the 2016 election “stolen” than Republicans who feel likewise about 2020. Why hasn’t Facebook banned Clinton? Bottom line, Haugen wants more, not less suppression of content that she considers “hateful” and “polarizing.” But who decides? Would that be the same people who call Jan. 6 an “insurrection” and who permanently banned Trump, but not Hillary Clinton, for promoting the Big Lie?"
Media Shut Down Secret Chat Room Coordinating Facebook Releases - "The group shut down abruptly on Tuesday afternoon after a series of unanswered inquiries from Breitbart News were sent to known members throughout the establishment media, including at least two New York Times reporters, a senior editor at the Atlantic, an NBC News reporter, and several others... The mere fact these media figures were coordinating across multiple publications and presumably with Haugen or her representatives is an explosive revelation. The last time such a revelation was made on this scale—a listserv called JournoList back during the early days of the Obama administration—it rocked the media to its core and cost several media figures their jobs. Multiple media outlets coordinating the timing and content of impactful news stories is generally considered a sin in terms of journalistic ethics. News organizations do regularly agree to embargoes, where they to prepare themselves and gain access to information ahead of its public release agree with sources not to release it until a certain time. But coordinating at this level media-wide—and having a secret nonpublic chat group to do it in—is a whole another level."
The Facebook Papers Are a Big Fat Nothingburger - "As when Haugen first came forward—providing information that formed the basis of a series of Wall Street Journal reports—the real takeaway is that Facebook has been struggling to attract the young users it wants, faces robust competition, and generates apoplectic denunciation from mainstream journalists mostly because they resent the social media giant for shaking up the news industry. There are, to be clear, some decent reasons in here to criticize Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The Washington Post reports that he was intimately involved with the company's decision to comply with the Vietnamese government's demand for greater censorship of political dissidents. Though even then, it's debatable what Zuckerberg should do when authoritarian governments demand content moderation. Should Facebook pull out of Vietnam, depriving the country of the site entirely? Is a censored version of Facebook worse than no Facebook at all? Note as well that bowing to the Vietnamese government's demand for greater censorship is being treated as a bad thing by some of the same outlets that are shaming Facebook for not bowing to the U.S. government's request for greater censorship. The site's failure to take down extremism, hate speech, and misinformation related to U.S. presidential elections and the COVID-19 pandemic is considered a grave moral failing. U.S. senators scream at Facebook for doing the bidding of other governments while engaged in the very act of trying to compel Facebook to do the bidding of the U.S. Senate. That's the central idea behind the mainstream media's framing of the Facebook Papers: The social media site is unsafe because there's too much content that the mainstream media and the government would prefer users not see. They're upset that the person in charge of deciding what belongs on Facebook is Mark Zuckerberg and not Joe Biden—and no amount of handwringing about addictive platforms or monopolistic practices can disguise the fact that the site is losing popularity with young people, and increasingly looks like a dying star."
Meme - "This man found my camera trap and I'm not mad about it"
Oliver Jia (オリバー・ジア) on Twitter - "Few even today know the context of this Vietnam War photo. Nguyen Van Lem was a Viet Cong soldier who slit the throats of South Vietnamese lieutenant colonel Nguyen Tuan, his wife, their six children, and the officer's 80-year-old mother. He was being executed for those crimes.
Eddie Adams wasn’t trying to make a statement when he took the photo, which went on to win a Pulitzer. In fact, he resented how people interpreted it without knowing the full context. Most Americans had no idea who Nguyen Van Lem was or what he did.
South Vietnamese Police Chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan was Lem’s executioner and a friend of the colonel he had murdered. He later immigrated to the U.S. and faced deportation due to being accused of war crimes, but Eddie Adams always vouched for him and apologized for taking the photo.
The sole survivor of the family Nguyen Van Lem murdered was Huan Nguyen, who was only nine at the time. He immigrated to the U.S. and went on to become the highest ranked Vietnamese-American officer in the military when he was promoted to the rank of rear admiral of the Navy.
The Vietnam War, like all wars, was a tragedy. There were atrocities committed on both sides and only a naive political partisan would say otherwise. The North Vietnamese side’s crimes, however, were not given as much spotlight because they tightly controlled all information."
Ghanaian Man with Masters Now Happily Working as Taxi Driver in Ireland - "A foreign passenger saw the sticker on his taxi and took a photo of it and unloaded it online. In the sticker, the Ghanaian revealed his educational qualifications and how he ended up in Ireland as a taxi driver. “Pls don’t ask futile personal quizzes, I am from Ghana, now Irish citizen. Yes, I like it here. I have master’s degree (MBA) UK. PLS show due esteem,” he wrote."
Meme - Push push @itspushpush: "Every single night I slip into the alley behind my block and release two gunshots into the sky to keep the rent in my neighborhood stable
Call that rent control"
I'm sure she'll complain about "stereotypes"
