helen “trans people are perpetuating gender steriotypes” joyce is now upset that the scientific american is writing about how women were hunters too back in the day, not just mothers and caretakers. feminist win!
New writing rule: Checkov’s friend
If you introduce a named character with a relationship to a protagonist, their character arc must be resolved in a way that feels reasonable and satisfying
Which is to say: they can’t just dissappear when they’re no longer a convenient plot device
i think a really funny project that a statistics professor could have their class do is like. put a bunch of random, patently untrue demographic statements into a hat. "the most popular tv show among white men ages 24-27 is Bluey." "the majority of business majors are middle children." "bisexual women love hot chips." and each student picks one out of the hat and you gotta like. design a whole study and survey a group of people to specifically achieve that result. you have to prove it true. by whatever means necessary. you have to construct the most biased study possible and wrangle in your exact demographic to make that statement a statistical reality. i think people would learn a lot.
“what if kids identify with something and it ends up just being a phase-?” good. stop teaching and expecting kids (and adults honestly) to formulate permanent traits and ideas of themselves. everything in life is a phase. that doesn’t make it any less legitimate while you experience it. let people explore themselves and know it’s okay if what you think about yourself changes.
something i've noticed that has become really annoying in the past 10 years or so is this fad of what i've been calling, for lack of a better word, "structural whataboutism." it's that thing where, when faced with a concrete, resolvable problem in your community, your answer is to blame it on a vast, unsolvable issue of structural inequality and then throw up your hands. "there's trash all over the ground in this corner of the park" becomes "well, that's where MEN OF COLOR congregate after their 12-HOUR GRAVEYARD SHIFTS and i'm not going to support a CARCERAL SOLUTION to a CAPITALISTIC PROBLEM. WE NEED TO ELIMINATE POVERTY AND THE SUBJUGATION OF THE WORKING CLASS" and it's like okay but sis. someone still has to go pick up the trash. we don't need a carceral solution, we need more trash cans. you're not going to eliminate poverty and the subjugation of the working class and even if ya did, there would still be trash on the ground. how any of this passes for radicalism within their peer groups i simply don't understand. it's radical laziness more than anything else
Food history has been so sanitized by the demonization of carbs. “Our ancestors only had fruits and veggies they didn’t have all these refined carbs” our ancestors drank beer 25/8 because the water was bad. Our ancestors drizzled honey on shit ever since we knew it existed. We’ve been making bread for our entire recorded history. It’s true that bleached sugars specifically are a new thing but high glycemic carbs are not new at all, we’ve been consuming them for thousands of years