One has truly got to be a terrible person to engage in such a performance. Whatever one’s political beliefs or opinions, this is disgraceful. One’s first loyalty should be to fellow citizens, and creating this kind of discomfort for your own community is not OK. The people in the theater aren’t political figures. They can’t do anything to address your grievances. It’s terrible to harass them like this.
Category: Uncategorized
Q&A about Teenage Smoking
I would tear the pack out of the teenager’s hands, smoke every cigarette in it to the nub, and lick the packet clean while heaving with delight.
Which would probably put the teenager off the weed but do nothing positive for my well-being.
Sorry, I’m not in a good position to try to prevent anybody else from smoking. I’m barely managing to prevent myself.
Q&A: English Usage
I’d say “it” to refer to a baby but for anybody older you can’t use “it”. If it’s an imaginary person or the sex is not known, you can say “they”. Sometimes, though, that’s confusing because people might think you are talking about a group. In these cases, I randomly use “he” or “she”.
At the Festival
We were at the festival for the historic Route 66 today, and, God, I love these small-town festivals. Inflatable castles, a petting zoo, a live band, local artisans, games for kids. Our town festivals are always held in the square in front of the public library, so those of us who are into reading can retire to the library to read on regular occasions.
At the festival, I saw a couple with three most magnificent large collies. The owners were decked out in Ukrainian symbolics, so of course I had to approach them. They have no personal connection to Ukraine but are great supporters.
“Isn’t it great how the Russian offensive on Kharkiv failed within days!” they gushed.
“Yes!” I agreed.
“And how amazing was Zelensky’s speech in France!”
“Yes!”
“And did you see what that veteran did, so touching!”
“Yes!”
“And did you hear what Putin said at that stupid forum of his that nobody visited?”
“Yes!”
“I only wish we took all the money we are sending to Israel and used it to help Ukraine win!”
“Yes! Wait, what?”
Regulate AI
Adobe arrogates the ownership of the content created by its users. Users pay the company and that act of payment means the company can take ownership over whatever the customers create using the product. It’s as if I sold you paper and then claimed ownership over the book you wrote on it.
The reason why Adobe does it is because the content created by its users is useful to train Adobe’s AI. Which Adobe will then monetize and take away the users’ jobs. In the end, nobody will have money to purchase Adobe products because there will only be AIs talking to other AIs.
This is going on everywhere – Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, etc. Whatever we create is arrogated, sold and used to train house AI with the goal of eliminating as much human labor as possible.
It’s urgently necessary to introduce regulations on AI. But we have such a sclerotic leadership and such an emotional, pouty electorate that it doesn’t occur to anybody even to stop and think why nothing is being done to regulate AI. We are poring over moronic partisan concerns and completely missing something of an extraordinary importance.
Q&A about Emigration
What is it with excellent questions these days? Every question I receive is a joy to answer. Here’s today’s:
If moving house is considered major life trauma, imagine moving countries. The first one, I was very young, so I mostly recovered fast. The second one, though, I was already 27, so it hit me hard. Took years to get over it. It’s like everything in your life is playing off-key. The feeling is disorienting, and it undermines everything you know about yourself.
It’s impossible to imagine what I would have put in the place that’s currently occupied with the Spanish-related stuff. I would have found something but what? Something psychology-related, maybe. I definitely would not have been an academic. I would have moved to a different region within the country because if I were to stay, I would have wanted to live as a Ukrainian, and back then it wasn’t possible in my very borderland city. I would have probably gone completely Ukrainian-speaking. I was massively nationalist in my early twenties, in case people don’t know.
I keep thinking about this, and I find it infinitely entertaining to imagine the version of myself that never heard the word “nation-state”, never read Rafael Chirbes, and has no opinions about wokeness.
Question About Germany
What do Germans read these days? Who are the major authors? I’m interested in both serious and mass market.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Q&A: Trans Ideology
To begin with, I want to mention that the overwhelming majority of people still have no idea what it’s even about. People think it’s simply about being kind and polite, and why not if it takes so little effort and costs nothing to them? Nobody wants to hurt anybody’s feelings.
As for women who trans small children, they are few in number and clearly disturbed. They have very little agency in life, and this helps them feel important and gain attention. If this method didn’t exist, they’d find another.
Of course, when we are talking about children who have reached puberty, there’s not much that parents can do other than be supportive. Any opposition will just make it worse. They have to believe it or convince themselves they believe it because there are no options at that point. The only way out is to have medical procedures of any kind outlawed completely.
So I think it’s mostly people not knowing what’s at stake and wanting to be kind. Once the issue is de-medicalized, it will cease to be a problem.
Q&A: Housework
One important thing to remember is that if you force yourself to do something on a regular basis that you hate, you’ll start to somatize. So don’t do it. Totally not worth it.
A healthier way to go about it is to find out why you hate it. You use very charged vocabulary with 4 strong, vivid descriptors in such a short text. A Stepford wife, a maid, a 50s housewife, on the one hand. Filth, on the other. You have an image of a person who cleans – subservient, robotic, pathetic. And you know that you are not that person. You have a strong personality and you value that in yourself. But you also feel some guilt for being strong and independent. You feel that it’s somehow dirty, filthy, not right. Somebody must have told you that being who you are makes you unclean. If you start cleaning, you’ll prove that person right, and that’s intolerable to you.
I suggest thinking in that direction. What makes you feel unclean? Who, in your mind, is the person that you associate with cleaning? Why do you feel that this person keeps encroaching on you? Instead of denying the emotion and trying to plough through it, untangle it. Only then will it lose its power over you.
Permanent Tracking
OK, I had no idea people did this. It’s beyond bizarre. 17 years with my husband, and I can’t imagine him requesting to have access to my location at all times (or at any time). Obviously, I would not agree because playing into a person’s neurosis is not a good idea.
The author of the article actually accesses an app before going to bed every night to spy on the location of several people she knows. And not one of them cares enough about this clearly unwell person to deny her access. That she’s on anti-anxiety meds and sleeping aids is a given, and nobody can be bothered to help her. That’s why she tried to track everybody so obsessively. She knows people around her don’t give a crap about her.
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