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Apparently there's going to be a Law & Order: Toronto, and I really desperately need them to make the world's most niche joke and have a detective from Chicago who came to Toronto on the trail of the killers of his father, who stayed - for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture - because In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.

This is a post that will make sense to . . . I think actually literally nobody on my feed, but is nonetheless really entertaining. I promise.

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#still relevant

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It sucks so hard that having a family trade or skill isn't really practiced here anymore. On the one hand it's nice to have the freedom to choose any life direction and not feel pressure to conform to family bs or taking over your father's business, and having standardized training and licensing scheme for say... dentistry is really good to have. But in doing that we've also put soo many career paths behind an insane paywall. Not only that but so many unis get rich or corporate donors who have the power to sway all this training and education for personal interests, it's another form of taking control from workers into the hands of the wealthy. And you can see that people want to return that hands-on craftsmanship and control over their labour again. You saw it in the arts and crafts movement as a response to the industrial revolution and factory made goods. And it is a form of alienation and erasing identity. It's why people who make 6 figures will watch a mini doc on some Syrian 10th generation tile maker who earns pennies and somehow comes away envious of them. it's that connection to what you create and the feeling of knowing your role here is useful, acknowledged, and appreciated by your community. You feel none of this in countless jobs today.

But unfortunately so much of that knowledge for creating, even things like folk crafts have been successfully eradicated by capitalism to create the ultimate class of consumers. If you want to learn how to do some new skill for a living you gotta go into debt and usually pause your current career which you can't afford to do, and nobody in your family already has any knowledge or equipment you need to work with. So people gravitate towards skills with a relatively low entry level and startup costs so we live in a world where alienated suburban moms are all crafting the exact same soap or candle they saw on pinterest as a side hustle.

#never thought about this #but yeah #now we have all those bullshit jobs (à la David Graeber)

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“Musk’s egomania drove him to buy and inevitably ruin Twitter because he hoped to transform it into X, his totalitarian “everything app” WeChat clone he wanted to send us to space with. But there is another, simpler narrative here. A man who grew up in apartheid South Africa, whose family owned a diamond mine, who made his name helping cyberlibertarians bypass banking laws, manipulating the US tax system to build faulty self-driving cars, and shooting rockets into space in the hopes of establishing debt slavery on Mars, bought an app built by activists and Black Americans, and that is relied on by the Global South as a valuable democratic tool, and is used by journalists around the world as a free and open source of information, and tried to turn it into his personal country club. This is just the mundane nightmare of watching a wealthy man wreck his new plaything — an imperfect, but vital communication system for some of the most vulnerable and marginalized communities in the world. This is a colonialist doing what colonialists do. And I hope that when this embarrassing circus is over, we can figure out how to build something back that someone like Musk can’t turn into his new diamond mine.”

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One giant slow-motion fail whale

This is a colonialist doing what colonialists do.

This is a colonialist doing what colonialists do.

This is a colonialist doing what colonialists do.

This is a colonialist doing what colonialists do.

This is a colonialist doing what colonialists do.

This is a colonialist doing what colonialists do.

#Twitter

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cat riding sheep

#fluff

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#WTF

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The dominant culture lies about aging. Losing my youth is one of the best things that’s happened to me. In spite of some devastating personal and global circumstances, my brief time in my 40s has been fucking wonderful.

I’m kinder, wiser, and more present than I’ve ever been. Grandiose narratives that always led to disappointment are being replaced by a compassionate engagement with what is. I know and love myself and other people and the earth better. I have less to prove and more to appreciate. I’m less objectified and this is freeing up my subjective experience. I do work that has meaning to me and I’m respected in it. I’m increasingly connected to my ancestors.

The human life course can be very hard, and we live in a world that makes it much harder than it ought to be. But clinging to youth isn’t the answer. So much more becomes available to us when we loosen our grip on what we think we should be and open ourselves to what we are: creatures who need care and are here, miraculously, for only a brief time.

#beautifully said #aging

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Proper boundaries

#boundaries

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It really is wild how people who don’t understand what consent is really do not understand what consent is. The idea that they’re supposed to know how someone wants to be treated, and err to the side of caution or even ask if they aren’t sure is absurd when you genuinely do not understand the concept.

“What, you need consent for everything these days?” Literally yes. And not just these days, but always have and always will.

“Do I need consent to kiss my wife in the morning? Do I need consent to shake someone’s hand after a business meeting? Do I need CoNsEnT to braid my daughter’s hair?”

Yes, yes and yes. A neurotypical person of reasonably passable social skill should have the ability to either instinctively understand when their touch is welcome, or logically conclude when their touch is socially expected. If you truly, literally, genuinely cannot tell whether your own child delights in you playing with her hair or merely endures it, then yeah, maybe you shouldn’t touch anyone at all, ever, before you learn how to do that.

“Do I need consent to make eye contact with strangers on the street? Do I need consent from everyone on board before I get on the bus?”

Okay now you’re just throwing a tantrum because someone told you ‘no’.

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People see that agricultural technology in the 20th century basically eliminated non-human-caused famines (correct) and conclude that current agricultural practices are ideal and that improving them is impossible (devastatingly stupid)

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The thing about knitting is it’s much harder to fear the existential futility of all your actions while you’re doing it.

Like ok, sure, sometimes it’s hard to believe you’ve made any positive impact on the world. But it’s pretty easy to believe you’ve made a sock. Look at it. There it is. Put it on, now your foot’s warm.

Checkmate, nihilism.

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Me, not talking: Ah fuck, I am being weird

Me, talking: Ah fuck, I am being weird

#oh so accurate

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