#anti us centrism

[brianbrianbrain]

IDs are of 4 slides from this Instagram post by perfectunion. Each is a screenshot of a tweet by American Economic Liberties Project @econliberties, with an American flag hanging down sideways as their profile picture.

ID. Slide 2:

"But Apple is innovative!"

Apple's greatest innovations were the result of dynamic & begin underline competitive end underline markets. Today, its own executives admit that its monopoly power allows the company to ship products that are simply "good enough."

Competition, not complacency, drives innovation. End ID.

ID. Slide 5:

"Apple is better at privacy!"

From begin underline degrading the security end underline of text messages to begin underline selling your data to foreign govts end underline, Apple's clock of privacy is mainly a self-serving branding strategy.

Apple can improve privacy at anytime without engaging in anti-competitive conduct. End ID.

ID. Slide 7:

"Apple doesn't harm me with its dominance!"

Apple keeps prices sky high for consumers, charges as much as begin circle $1,599 end circle for an iPhone now, a fee for every "tap-to-pay" transaction, & more.

By begin underline blocking other hardware developers, there's no pressure to lower prices or increase quality end underline. End ID.

ID. Slide 9:

"I don't even use Apple products, why should I care?"

Apple begin circle exploits end circle its market power to hobble innovation by rivals across the economy.

Now, they're begin underline expanding their monopoly power to automobiles, content creation, and finance end underline -- using the same exclusionary conduct playbook. End ID.

aw yea... the u.s. centrism, the subtle xenophobia, and all the classic economic illusions.

2: consider that collaboration is what drives innovation. fricking capitalist BS that "innovation" requires "competition." usually "innovation" that occurs under "competition" is just new and fucked up ways to control people as much as possible. i'd argue that apple, or at least those that dominated apple operations, were already in the exclusivity mindset from the beginning, and so the natural next step was to continue "innovating" ways to create a monopoly.

5: seriously, selling data to foreign governments? this just feels like xenophobic fearmongering. hit me up with a source, please. i can, however, guarantee you that apple is "selling" data to the surveillance state in the us. to act as if they are only selling to foreign governments, or that it's only an issue if they're selling to foreign governments, is classic union nationalism and just so incredibly harmful and untrue.

7: so u.s. centric here. are you kidding me, whining about an expensive phone? it's not that hard to buy secondhand, or simply not buy a new phone at all. think of the folks who are being murdered and/or worked to death for cobalt and check yourself. do you really want to live in a world and support an operation where constant murder is the norm? because that's what you're supporting when you won't even talk about issues like rare earth metal mining when talking about tech companies.

and sure, there's something to be said about how the expensive phone is an example of how this entire system is bullshit, but you can't talk about that by only focusing on a price / without talking about the constant violence that it requires.

9: again, so u.s. centric.

and more vague economic propaganda. what do you really mean by "market power"? what "innovation"? what "rivals"? is the issue that things are not transparent / open source, or are you still for the worst of private ownership? do you care about people, or are they all just "consumers" to you?

also the fearmongering. apple does not have monopoly power over autos, content, or finance whatsoever. i genuinely have no idea what bro is talking about. cars??? content??? finance??? i mean ok maybe autos in the sense that i know newer cars might only support certain kinds of phone connections, but the rest??? hello??? google exists??? facebook exists??? and who tf only accepts apple pay? + all the real money is still in the banks, which apple does not own.

also like. that american flag is lowk suspicious ok. and the "American." like yea seeing that, i expected all of this shit. but i wonder what a world where perfectunion platformed more supply chain and establishment critical sources, even just very occasionally, would look like. and like, this guy already panders to Trump supporters, okay? why not balance it out? (i mean we all know the answer – at the core of today's union organizing is usually a lot of white nationalism).

obligatory yes i talk shit about unions all the time but it's still important to support them. which you can still do while criticizing them and thinking of ways to push them further.

#unionposting #image described #anti us centrism

[lilithism1848]

#centrist #avalon centrifuge #socialism #communism #leftism #anarchy #anti capitalism #twitter post #tweet #centrism #memes #twitter x #meme #funny memes #best memes #tumblr memes #dank memes #humor #funny #haha #lol #joke #identity politics #politics #political #us politics #american politics #biden #uspol

[phantom-of-the-memes]

I just want to say I find it kind of icky that people are centring Americaness when talking about Palestine.

I get what people are saying with the Super Bowl distracting the American public from what’s happening, but that should be its own post you know?

It just annoys me to see a post describing the horrors now happening Rafah including an American football game. It’s fine to say in its own post “Hey don’t let this take your focus away”. But for almost every post I see to say “blah blah Super Bowl… anyways children dying!”. Like???

Also, an obvious thing, but not everyone on here is American or has ever watched/ wanted to watch it. I want to reblog posts with info about Palestine but it includes all this irrelevant info about America/ American politics.

#like maybe I’m wrong do correct me but it just rubs me the wrong way #american centrism #Palestine #Palestinian #free palestine #anti zionist #anti Zionism #Israel #super bowl #American #usa #us american #America

[faggilyeverafter]

I hate how US-centric this site is for a lot of reasons, but the one that's really getting at me right now is that I can't mention I'm a republican without having to put a giant disclaimer. Like I'm not the racist type of republican! I simply want that cunt with the crown dead!

#uk politics #us centrism #fuck the monarchy #anti monarchy

[area51-narutorun]

it’s so funny when a post on here calls usamericans “yanks” and then a whole bunch of them swarm into the notes going “akshually 🤓☝️ did you KNOW that ‘yankee’ is actually a term from the civil war and it was used by southerners to refer to northerners???” like. I know that. I don’t care.

#i’ve known about the origins of the term yankee since i was ten years old due to us cultural dominance #i don’t care if you don’t consider yourself a yank. all usamericans are yanks. #if you don’t like it we can always stick to seppos #australia #us centrism #anti yank action

[shrimplex]

all you motherfuckers doing slur discourse in 2023 is so funny.

slur discourse based on "but they do not call you [slur] nona", it literally excludes anyone who doesnt live in an english-speaking country, who doesnt hang out in english-speaking spaces

it's so western and you're all fucking clowns

yes of course they didn't fucking call me a retard, because guess what people in poland speak polish and "retard" is not a polish word

same goes for like anyone and their mother living anywhere else than AU/UK/US/CA/NZ, they didnt grow up being called retards or trannies or whatever english slur is out there

grow up and if you want to do chronically online pvp over words in the year of arcane arts 2023 then at least dont base it around the western standards

#r word #t word #r slur #t slur #slur discourse #discourse #rant #anti us-centrism

[1pcii]

random one piece characters as Grandson songs

Sabo:

koby:

Law:

Vivi:

Zoro:

Usopp:

Ace:

#aka what happens when you try listen to an album but are overtaken by blorbo intent #I re-listened to his newest album recently so naturally I've been thinking of the themes of fascism and anti-authoritarianism in one piece #I haven't actually met adult sabo yet but I feel I'm going to REALLY like him considering my past of falling for 'violent freedom fighter' #characters that are demonised by their narratives for their more radical beliefs and actions because centrism is alarmingly common In media #and the lack of nuance that could enhance what could be really interesting stories gets frustrating. another thing I appreciate about one- #-piece. while it has marine apologism it is alot more focused on the outlaws of its world. and sabo isnt labled a pos for the crime of bein #anti-government. or 'just as bad' as the opressive forces in the show for using 'radical' methods himself. #psii.mp3 #music #revolutionary sabo #trafalgar d water law #koby #nefertari vivi #roronoa zoro #usopp #making character playlists would probably be better but in my defence I only end up adding 3 songs max before loosing interest soo... #¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ #Spotify

[jvzebel-x]

🦋

#sometimes i get really sad about my life you know? like. really sad about it lmao. for various reasons. #like it would be really cool to be normal. very often i just wish i was normal lmao. #but then i remember meeting this guy while i was homeless&he had everything that i late 20s/early 30s college grad would want #stable&well paying job in the field he actually went to college for #rented part of a banging a duplex that had a yard allowed dogs&was a five minute walk from downtown bar crawl area #had both one of my fave motorcycles-- an r6--&one of my all time dream cars-- a 6speed cts-v. #i presume a dating life from the tampons that were in his bathroom. #&yet. he was miserable from what i could tell lmao. &it was weird bc it was like he didnt realize that #until he met us lmao. i would be more annoyed by that. i was v annoyed by it at the time lmao. the amount of weird jealousy i dealt w while #fucking homeless+sick is disgusting&ill never forgive fucking anyone for it&a part of me will always be dead+rotted bc of it lmao. #but for him it was different in the way of. i could kind of understand it lmao. #he had come from a rough background from what i understand&was a success story. #&yet he clearly felt trapped in his own life. clearly felt like he was surrounded by things he should be more grateful for while none of it #filled the hole in him ppl like him are PROMISED success will fill. being apart of the status quo but on the good end will alleviate. #he had been in one accident&never rode his bike again. when i asked why he lied&told me the bike was unrideable bc he didnt know me lmao #&when i asked if there had been any damage past the obvious dent in the gas tank he got red+quiet+changed the topic. #he worked at some big bank&didnt bother trying to brag bc the one thing he DID know about me is that i am v anti bank+leftist lmao. #he considered himself a leftist too until he talked to me&realized he was actually v centrist in basically every view he had #&that centrism came from a desire to keep his privileges as a cis white straight man-- something that made him openly embarassed. #he used to deal thru college&when i met him he couldnt keep up w one round of dabs w me something that also obviously embarassed him. #he had surrounded himself w ppl just like him&was jarred upon meeting anyone outside of that bubble who wasnt a far right asshole. #&he didnt like what he saw about himself. &that was really obvious. #when we left his place after the brief week we were staying there he was literally in tears about how much he wanted to come. #to help&see where we ended up or whatever idk lmao. i guess im still actively annoyed by it lmao. #but i still get it on some level. when you reach the top&realize youre not fucking happy where do you go from there? #will a house do it? will moving to a different location for your same bullshit job do it? will meeting a girl exactly like you do it? #&when i want to be normal so bad it physically hurts i remember him&i think maybe things arent so bad lmao. #like it could be worse i guess lmao.

[runandhideguys]

wait I need some usamericans to help me with this one, do right wing people really say jab instead of vaccine as like a demonising thing?? cuz ive heard it called a buzzword for anti vaxxers but in england all vaccines are called jabs

#I don't see how calling it a jab would make it a bad thing #but like Ive seen US leftists call English leftists anti vaxxers for calling it a jab #I don't understand US politics sorry #us centrism

[ecoterrorist-katara]

Why I feel like Ka/taang is one-sided, despite textual evidence 

ATLA does try to convince us that Katara has romantic feelings for Aang. For example: she seems thoughtful when she realizes that Aang is a powerful bender; she’s offended that he didn’t want to kiss her in the Cave of Two Lovers; she gets jealous when Sokka says On Ji and Aang look good together.

So…what’s wrong with anti-Kataangers? Do we just lack media comprehension? 

To be clear, on their own, these gestures can indicate romantic interest. But at the same time, we have stuff like “Aang is a sweet little guy, like Momo.” We have her ambivalent facial expression after he kisses her before the eclipse, and her hedging during Ember Island Players, and her anger when he kisses her anyway. In the context of these conflicting cues, Katara’s possibly romantic reactions can absolutely be interpreted in a different way, because: 

Acknowledging a friend as a potential romantic interest is not the same as actually being romantically interested in them. (Imo this is something young women struggle with, due to a combination of romance-centrism and heteronormativity that make women feel like they should be in romantic relationships, and that boys and girls who share intimate and deep feelings for one another must be romantically into each other) 

Wanting someone to find you desirable is not the same as desiring that person. (Which is something a lot of women, especially young women, struggle with. Remember all the discourse around Cat Person back in 2017?) 

Being jealous when someone flirts with your friend is not the same as wanting to be with your friend. (Especially when you see your friends as family, or if you’re accustomed to a specific type of devotion from that friend. It is jealousy, and it is possessiveness, but it doesn’t always arise from romantic feelings) 

Growing up in a patriarchal society means that your desires are always filtered through what men want from you, sometimes in an abstract male gaze-y way, and sometimes in a very visceral and interpersonal way when a boy wants you specifically. And Katara’s reactions are just that — reactions. Reactions to what other people — including Aunt Wu, Sokka, Aang himself — have insinuated about her and Aang. She’s not really proactive in her interest in Aang: we don’t really see Aang, romantically, from Katara’s POV. Under the framework of “Katara is reacting to a romantic prospect she’s kind of uncertain about,” it is completely plausible — and indeed likely — that she would sometimes act in ways that indicate romantic interest, in addition to moments where she indicates the opposite. 

Ka/taang shippers often bring up other evidence, like Katara’s despair when Azula hits Aang with lightning, or how protective she is of him when Zuko joins the Gaang. The thing is, these pieces of evidence aren’t necessarily indicative of romantic love. The fact that Katara genuinely loves Aang makes the whole thing more complicated, not less, because — especially at that age, especially when Aang is twelve years old and grew up in a sex-segregated society of monks — it is really difficult to tell the difference between platonic love and romantic love. Their mutual devotion is layered and complex yet straightforward in its sincerity. What was not straightforward, until the last five minutes of the show, is whether this devotion on Katara’s end is romantic. The romantic arc for Katara and Aang is not really an arc, as Sneezy discusses in this classic ZK video. Katara actually becomes more conflicted over time and we never see an event that clarifies her feelings. She seems more interested in him in The Headband than on the Day of the Black Sun, and she has never been more hostile to his romantic overtures than in the penultimate episode. 

And in light of this, it’s pretty easy for fans to fill in the blanks with a different interpretation: maybe Katara’s weird expression after their kiss at the invasion means she didn’t enjoy it; maybe the kiss made her realize that she doesn’t actually feel that way about Aang; maybe against her will and her better judgement, she’s developing feelings for another person, a person who hurt her and whom she fervently tried to hate until he pulled off what is in my opinion the greatest grovel of all time in the form of a life-changing field trip. Maybe. Am I saying that Zutara has more romantic interactions than Ka/taang? Of course not. But ironically, the lack of romantic interactions means that it’s not inherently one-sided, the way Ka/taang became in the latter half of season 3.

I’m not arguing that Katara’s unequivocally not into Aang. Obviously the text declares that she is, because they get married and have kids. But I am saying that there’s a very good reason that so many people, especially women, see Katara’s interest in Aang as ambiguous. It’s not because we can’t pick up “subtle” hints of growing affection. It’s because we know not all affection is romantic, and it’s really easy for someone else’s insistent romantic intentions to muddle what you want.

P.S. I first started thinking about these topics (platonic vs romantic love, desiring someone vs wanting to be desired, etc) in the context of compulsory heterosexuality, a term describing how queer women contort themselves into relationships with men even if they’re not really into men. I saw a post a few days ago joking about why so many queer women seem to be into Zutara. I wonder if part of the reason is because as queer women, we are very sensitive to the ways in which we can talk ourselves into wanting things we don’t actually want, and Katara’s romantic interest in Aang can be easily seen that way. 

#Anti Kataang #Zutara #anti Bryke #Katara deserved better #From Bryke who offered her so little romantic agency #I actually think Aang and Katara’s mutual devotion is really compelling because the wires get crossed when you have such intense love #And navigating romantic vs platonic feelings can be very complicated and interesting #but no we did not get that bc I guess they just had to end with a romance however shoddily developed #my meta

[zedecksiew]

How To Play The Revolution

So: I do not like the idea of TTRPGs making formal mechanics designed to incentivise ethical play.

But, to be honest, I do not like the idea of any single game pushing any particular formal mechanics about ethical play at all.

So here I am, trying to think through the reasons why, and proposing a solution. (Sort of. A procedure, really.)

+

Assumptions:

1.

Some genres of game resist ethical play. A grand strategy game dehumanises people into census data. The fun of a shooter is violence. This is truest in videogames, but applies to tabletop games also.

Games can question their own ethics, to an extent. Terra Nil is an anti-city-builder. But it is a management game at heart, so may elide critiques of "efficiency = virtue".

Not all games should try to design for ethical play. I believe games that incentivise "bad" behaviour have a lot to teach us about those behaviours, if you approach them with eyes open.

2.

The systems that currently govern our real lives are terrible: oligarchy, profit motive; patriarchy, nation-states, ethno-centrisms. They fuel our problems: class and sectarian strife, destruction of climate and people, spiritual desertification.

They are so total that the aspiration to ethical behaviour is subsumed by their logics. See: social enterprise; corpos and occupying forces flying rainbow flags; etc.

Nowadays, when I hear "ethical", I don't hear "we remember to be decent". I hear "we must work to be better". Good ethics is radical transformation.

3.

If a videogame shooter crosses a line for you, your only real response is to stop playing. This is true for other mechanically-bounded games, like CCGs or boardgames.

In TTRPGs, players have the innate capability to act as their own referees. (even in GM-ed games adjudications are / should be by consensus.) If you don't like certain aspects of a game, you could avoid it---but also you could change it.

Only in TTRPGs can you ditch basic rules of the game and keep playing.

+

So:

D&D's rules are an engine for accumulation: more levels, more power, more stuff, more numbers going up.

If you build a subsystem in D&D for egalitarian action, but have to quantify it in ways legible to the game's other mechanical parts---what does that mean? Is your radical aspiration feeding into / providing cover for the game's underlying logics of accumulation?

At the very least it feels unsatisfactory---"non-representative of what critique / revolution entails as a rupture," to quote Marcia, in conversations we've been having around this subject, over on Discord.

How do we imagine and represent rupture, to the extent that the word "revolution" evokes?

My proposal: we rupture the game.

+++

How To Play The Revolution

Over the course of play, your player-characters have decided to begin a revolution:

An armed struggle against an invader; overturning a feudal hierarchy; a community-wide decision to abandon the silver standard.

So:

Toss out your rule book and sheets.

And then:

Keep playing.

You already know who your characters are: how they prefer to act; what they are capable of; how well they might do at certain tasks; what their context is. You and your group are quite capable of improv-ing what happens next.

Of course, this might be unsatisfactory; you are here to play a TTRPG, after all. Structures are fun. Therefore:

Decide what the rules of your game will be, going forward.

Which rules you want to keep. Which you want to discard. Jury-rig different bits from different games. Shoe-horn a tarot deck into a map-making game---play that. Be as comprehensive or as freeform as you like. Patchwork and house-rule the mechanics of your new reality.

The god designer will not lead you to the revolution. You broke the tyranny of their design. You will lead yourself. You, as a group, together. The revolution is DIY.

+++

Notes:

This is mostly a thought experiment into a personal obsession. I am genuinely tempted to write a ruleset just so I can stick the above bit into it as a codified procedure.

I am tickled to imagine how the way this works may mirror the ways revolutions have played out in history.

A group might already have alternative ruleset in mind, that they want to replace the old ruleset with wholesale. A vanguard for their preferred system.

Things could happen piecemeal, progressively. Abandon fiat currency and a game's equipment price list. Adopt pacifism and replace the combat system with an alternative resolution mechanic. As contradictions pile up, do you continue, or revert?

Discover that the shift is too uncomfortable, too unpredictable, and default back to more familiar rules. The old order reacting, reasserting itself.

+

I keep returning to this damn idea, of players crossing thresholds between rulesets through the course of play. The Revolution is a rupture of ethical reality like Faerie or the Zone is a rupture in geography.

But writing all this down is primarily spurred by this post from Sofinho talking about his game PARIAH and the idea that "switching games/systems mid-session" is an opportunity to explore different lives and ethics:

Granted this is not an original conceit (I'm not claiming to have done anything not already explored by Plato or Zhuangzi) but I think it's a fun possibility to present to your players: dropping into a parallel nightmare realm where their characters can lead different lives and chase different goals.

+

Jay Dragon tells me she is already exploring this idea in a new game, Seven Part Pact:

"the game mechanics are downright oppressive but also present the capacity to sunder them utterly, so the only way to behave ethically is to reject the rules of the game and build something new."

VINDICATION! If other designers are also thinking along these lines this means the idea isn't dumb and I'm not alone!

+++

( Images:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/victoria-3-dev-diary-23-fronts-and-generals.1497106/

https://www.thestranger.com/race/2017/04/05/25059127/if-you-give-a-cop-a-pepsi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames

https://nobonzo.com/

https://pangroksulap.com/about/ )

#theory #ttrpgs #politics #revolutions #proposals #pariah

[effervescentdragon]

buckle up, because I’m about to go off. So i posted this take this morning, because I was thinking about F1 fandom’s habit and hipocrisy of criticising “third-world” or “middle-eastern” countries about their breach of human rights (no matter how much i personally think most of it is performative, pat-myself-on-the-back-for-being-a-good-human kinda “activism”), while nobody is saying anything about F1 racing in Miami, Florida, which is currently literally one of the worst places to live. to which, as is usual on good ol’ tumblr, i got this ask

i blocked the anon, obviously, but to borrow dear friends’ words “this ask is so american, all it needs is an eagle, a gun, unaffordable healthcare and perhaps a burger”. HOWEVER. i can’t stay silent. i choose violence (metaphorical) these days. my first thought was to reply with “i’d check my privilege but im too busy being able to check my bloodwork with my free healthcare”, which may be a bit tone-deaf and mean. so i outsorced this ask to certain friends (including a full-blooded american and a person from the middle east), and here is a series of screenshots of their responses, because they are wonderful and smart and more verbose than i was this morning, with only one coffee in my blood and irritation level of +billion. their opinions also kind of matter more than my own, because these are their lived experiences. 

now. as i said, and as you can see, these are the lived experiences of my friends, and are therefore also subjective at their core. so lets look at some facts. 

“florida is in the usa, a free, democratic, modern, developed country where protection of human rights is enforced”, i believe you said? ALLRIGHT:

- a bill that passed in florida 10 days ago that allows judges to alter custody agreements if they think one parent might allow gender affirming care

- florida abortion ban after 6 weeks, with no exceptions for rape or incest after 15 weeks 

- a transgender sports ban in florida that allows genital inspection of minors, aka children (thank you @lauda4theback​ for finding these links for me)

- USA’s position in the Democratic Index;

- tumblr post with sources made around four days ago with details about just some of the gun violence happening in the US currently;

- BBC article about 160 mass shootings that had happened in 2023 up until April 16th and data from gun-violence archive (which, correct me if im wrong, is singularily an american thing);

- Anti-Trans Bill tracker no 1 and no 2 in the US, which, you know, implies violation of basic human rights;

- banning of books in the us to cripple education and avoid taking responsibility and acknowledging already existing and rampantly rising levels of racism, homophobia, transphobia, and generally what you all like to call “traditional (christian) values” and the rest of the world likes to call “blatant right-wing fascism” - here’s florida specifically (god i hate nyt); 

these are just some of the FACTS about the united states, and they very much speak for themselves. i couldve found a million more sources, but, honestly, i dont feel like waddling through more of the mud that is this country’s awful politics and policies. 

now its time for my opinion. im assuming youre american, because if youre not, thats just... i have no words, then. you can come in here spouting absolute fucking brainwashing propaganda your country does to you on a regular basis, but dont expect me to have to listen to it, and do anything other than laugh derisively. your-us centrism is tiring, scary, and insane, because your country, to me, is little more than a glorified cult. it’s dangerous to the rest of the world for many reasons, not the least the way it permeates every sphere of our public life and pushes american fucking propaganda upon all of us, whether we want it or not, and its absurd and awful fucking military, which i would like to see razed to the ground immediately, but i pity you, anon, for being so absolutely lacking in critical thinking that you actually believe this bullshit that you are spewing. i was trying to criticise our fandom’s way of expressing outrage when it comes to non-western, whatever the fuck that means, countries while simultanously not speaking about or even acknoledging the fact that rapid erosion of democracy in the us has all the markings of the same “dictatorial” regimes we like to be enraged over when it comes to racing in bahrain or jeddah or abu dhabi, except the usa is not being held hostage by a single autocratic dictator but with the republican party which controls the government institutions. that is sometimes the only difference i can see.

i wont speak about human rights in the middle east, because i am not middle-eastern. there’s people who can add their opinions here, and i invite them to do so. i also invite anyone to tell me if i got something wrong, used a wrong source, or said anything that i need to re-check or do more research on. but the bottom line is: for you to take my LEGIT criticism and get offended on behalf of the fucking US instead, well. that says a lot about you and your priorities, doesn’t it?

#rant fucking over #i did go a bit ad hominem there but whatever #im not even getting into the accusation i dont know what kind of atrocities are happening in the world #because its irrelevant here and also laughable #besties will know i guess xD #anways not tagging this with anything except #long post #effervescentdragonrants

[communistkenobi]

I was wondering about the horseshoe theory (mentioned in your post about fascism and communism). There's also something called the fish hook theory (don't really have any thoughts on it). I've been graphics illustrating both and tbh sometimes they feel like they fit but part of it is bc I think a lot of people calling themselves communists and anti imperialists are left nationalists and revanchists. It definitely seems like there's a lack of striving towards internationalism etc. At the same time idk if calling these communists not real communists makes sense (no true Scotsman fallacy or w.e) bc they're the ones we've got on planet Earth.

I don’t find any type of visual shorthand like horseshoe/fish hook/compass etc useful personally because I don’t think those symbols depict any actual empirical facts about history or politics. Like I think they are just fundamentally not serious because you can’t use them as frameworks to analyze history or political conflict, and doubly useless as prescriptions for what to do to resolve those conflicts. The fish hook is to my understanding a response to the horseshoe theory (extremism of “both sides” equivalently harmful/bad/“ideological”), but the problem is that the fish hook is using the same logic that all political conflict can both summarized and understood with a single symbol, that this symbol speaks for itself. the actual critique of horseshoe theory I find most compelling is that it’s fundamentally a joke premise, it’s the analytical equivalent of an r/Libertarian meme and should only be mocked and dismissed out of hand, not countered with a different symbol. its primary function is to argue that “centrism” is a coherent political ideology. this symbol may even occasionally appear to fit with a particular context of reality but that does not mean it is valuable for understanding reality

re who are actual communists is a conversation I have with close friends somewhat regularly re: activism work and am interested in responding to, but I do not want to do so in a public setting. or at least, not on tumblr. you know how it is on here

#asks #I like your url btw lol #I’m high also so if this sounds rude or hostile I genuinely don’t mean it that way like I’m not mad or anything #anatomy of fascism #<- I think i discussed this under this tag before #i have to finish that book also. I GOT TOO MUCH TO READ!!!!

[area51-narutorun]

oh my fucking god I spotted a “50 countries in a trench coat” idiot in the wild

#from tiktok #can’t believe i’m seeing ‘50 countries in a trench coat’ unironically in 2024 #anti yank action #mormonism #tiktok #australia #us centrism

[sophieinwonderland]

(Might as well get this reply to a syscourse post about me out of my drafts too.)

You hit the nail on the head when you said "if it's not fun" that you don't see the point, even if it also has to do with what you believe you're doing to help. You're here to have fun firstly, and if the work of eradicating bigotry isn't fun, you're not all that interested.

I've been here for years having the same discussions, trying to help people when I can and do my best to help grow the community and counter misinformation where I see it.

And there are a lot of days when it can feel exhausting.

I'm one person. And I'm arguably not even an entire one of those. I don't front nearly as much as my host, and most of the time I get ends up dedicated to this.

So yes, I do want some of the time I spend on this blog to be on topics I enjoy.

And nitpicking this just feels gross and manipulative.

I don't particularly care about the anti-psych conversation. I think we all agree there are significant flaws in the psych system. It just seems to me that your plan to fix those flaws would be destroying what's there and rebuilding it completely, where I would prefer the Ship of Theseus approach of replacing it bit by bit.

I don't generally use spoon theory much, but I don't know a better way to put it than saying I don't have the spoons to hash this out. Or at least, it's not somewhere I think would be beneficial to dedicate them towards. 🤷‍♀️

The heart of deradicalization is compassion. To disentangle bigotry from big, messy emotions, you have to approach it from an emotional standpoint.

Absolutely! This is 100% true! If you want to deradicalize, this is the best approach.

When it works, anyway. Thing is, I tried this approach early on. Spent a couple months talking to an anti-endo. I honestly thought we were on good terms and that I was making progress. We had been exchanging questions about our own experiences with plurality.

Then when I was banned, they turned around and cheered along with most of the anti-community.

Even then, I wasn't going to completely give up on compassion. I tried more. But the thing about notoriety, whether deserved or not, is that it immediately poisons any attempt at genuine conversation. By this point, I had already gotten a rather undeserved reputation among anti-endos, and if I tried communicating publicly with one, it wouldn't be long before they got an anon or reblog telling them how bad I supposedly was.

And while I feel my reputation was undeserved at the time, I realized that if I would never be able to convince them, I might as well play into my role as the boogeyman anti-endos want me to be.

No, calling anti-endos worse than parasites and an evil hate group is probably not going to deradicalize them. But they've already been fed so many lies about me personally and are primed to disregard anything I say anyway. Compassion from me won't work.

You know what I think this tactic does do, though? I think it shifts the middle ground for people who can't make a decision. Many people have a natural attraction to the center. It's a logical fallacy, but this too is rooted in emotions.

If the spectrum is "endos are scientifically impossible and are hurting trauma survivors and you're ableist for supporting them," and just "endogenic systems are actually real and valid," what do you think "neutral" means in such an environment? Because to me, it seems like centrism lands in favor of the anti-endo when these are the extremes presented to neutrals.

But amp up pro-endo rhetoric to match that of anti-endos, replying with "anti-endos are an evil anti-science hate group bent on hurting a marginalized community for existing," and now the center alignment shifts a bit more in the pro-endo direction.

And to be clear, this isn't far off from how I've always felt. The only things that's changed was a willingness to say it out loud. But I don't actually need to convince everyone this is true. I just need to shift what appears to be the moderate position to something that would actually be more moderate and advantageous to us.

...

And that brings me to one final gambit I'm making.

That I'm am going to lose people with these idea. That there will be some pro-endos who will be pushed away from this blog by me labeling anti-endos as a hate group or by my tactics in the way I respond to them.

These pro-endos will shift more towards moderate stances.

And that, IMO, can be useful too. Because it positions them to do what I can't, where they'll appear more approachable and "reasonable" to anti-endos. That allows these systems to do what I can't and be able to connect with people on the other side.

There is a reason why I will often turn a blind eye to pro-endos who are saying horrible things about me, personally, and just let them carry on. (As long as they aren't attacking other members of the community.) It's because, whether they are with me or against me, as long as they're pro-endo, they're still useful in spreading our message.

And I'll admit, this might be a dangerous play. Push people too far, and they might go straight to the anti-endo side.

But... I don't see that as too much of a risk... despite playing into the boogeyman persona anti-endos gave me, I have lines I don't cross. I'm not sending threats. I'm not saying people deserve to die. I'm not going on to positivity posts to start fights like Hyaena-Bites did back in the day. And if I see pro-endos crossing these lines, I do my best to rein them in or call them out.

I've intentionally established myself as an extremist in my views and rhetoric, certainly. But not in my actions.

Finally, for all that you position yourself as an expert in psychology, ironically, you yourself are acting in a way that serves to further radicalize anti-endos. Rather than learning and engaging with genuine, known, deradicalization tactics, you are the perfect "enemy" for the genuinely malicious anti-endos to use to convince the ones indoctrinated into thinking they're doing good that pro endos are dangerous.

To be clear, I've never positioned myself as an expert in psychology. I'm a girl with a blog who did a couple free psychology courses and has read a few papers in a very specialized area of interest.

But I think this line of reasoning is silly. Anti-endos are always going to be able to find targets to vilify and make into an enemy.

I just figure that if their enemy is inevitably going to be someone, it might as well be me. I think I'm better able to take harassment than many others in this community.

Putting a giant bullseye on my chest isn't an accident. It's an intentional decision.

But also... am I really? Am I really the "perfect enemy" to convince anti-endos that the endogenic community is dangerous?

Because guess what? There are a lot of pro-endos out there who take things too far. There was the doxxing incident a couple years ago. There are people who send death threats. There are people who send gore. There are genuinely abusive people who have been in various endogenic communities. That's not a problem with the community. It's just a fact that every large community is going to have bad people in it.

And then there's me who... is not always totally polite? Comes off a bit strong? Calls anti-endos a hate group? Calls them evil?

Do you really think this actually compares to the worst things in the community?

Does this really seem "dangerous" to you by comparison?

#syscourse #pro endogenic #pro endo

[bajoop-sheeb]

I can't help but notice that all of the people in your anti-colonialism by "marginalized people" book rec list are people who were born and grew up in either the US or, in one or two cases, another white Anglophone country. I.e. the imperial core.

As a non-American I wonder whether, due to the cultural hegemony of the US and other Anglophone countries, the perspectives of people who have spent their whole lives in the Imperial core (even if marginalized in other ways due to their race or some other attribute) can be considered "authentic" depictions of the effects of colonialism in the way that you are presenting them. I find that people from the US, even POC people from the US, are often pretty incapable of understanding non-US perspectives on social justice issues because they're rarely exposed to them and because they grew up brainwashed with media that treats the US as the center of the world, so they overlay the US framework over everything.

I would perhaps have liked to see more recs for authors writing about colonialism who actually grew up in countries that have been affected by colonialism, or at least in countries that aren't as rich and powerful as the US and are therefore heavily dependent on the political whims of powerful Western ones. I'm sure there's a bunch of people in South America writing SF/F, for example, considering their long tradition of awesome magical realism. Or South Africa. Or India (I note that Salman Rushdie is not on your list, for example). I'm not writing this to be pettish, because I don't know enough about it either and would actually like to know, I just feel like perhaps we should all be a bit humbler when talking about this since a strictly US-centric perspective is still a VERY limited one when talking about colonialism (by definition an international, intercultural phenomenon), even when written by POC.

I also wonder about your definition of "marginalized" and if it doesn't fall into the same US-centrism that I talked about in my previous paragraph (even if we assume that "marginalized" means "marginalized as it relates to colonialism" and ignore other forms of marginalization). Is a person from, say, the Balkans, marginalized enough to write about anti-colonialism, or are they exactly the same as a white American in your perspective? Does it matter where from the Balkans? Does it matter if they're Muslim or Christian? How about a Ukrainian person? How about a Ukrainian Jew? Is a person from Bosnia or Ukraine, who went through a war in their lifetime, less qualified to write about war than Kuang, who grew up middle class and went to an Ivy League school (and honestly did a really shitty job of portraying a war in The Poppy Wars), just because they're "Caucasian"?

Also, people are allowed to acknowledge flaws of books written by POC without being automatically labeled as racist, you know. Finding Babel too heavy-handed or on the nose has nothing to do with finding POC characters annoying or unrelatable and sorry but, yeah, IMHO it's really on the nose and annoying about it. It's the writing style that's the problem, not the themes. Also the central metaphor, IMHO, makes it completely useless as a colonialism allegory because if you can destroy colonialism by destroying one magical uberpowerful whatsit, your book is kinda not serious enough about nuanced representation of sociological and political forces to be considered impactful anti-colonialist literature. Saying that as someone who loves Butler and Jemisin. Thea Guanzhon, for example, is a Filipina born and raised in the Philippines and still lives there, which makes her book way more of an "own voices" account of colonialism than Kuang's could ever be in my accounting, but that doesn't mean that her account of colonialism has any particular nuance to it (so far it's just the backdrop for the enemies to lovers romance). So even assuming that Kuang's account is resonant enough with enough people (which I know it is because her book is super popular), who is more deserving of being on your "own voices" list, Kuang or Guanzhon?

I also wonder why white women in particular?

The simple response to all of this is that the post you're referring to broke containment.

I debated replying, because I can't help but feel your message was written in bad faith. But I'm going to try to give you the benefit of the doubt.

You are absolutely right about the limitations of the original list. I truly didn't expect it to reach so many people, and I am not nearly as well-read as I'd like to be when it comes to literature written outside of the West. Please take a look at the reblogs, where a bunch of awesome people have done incredible work filling the gaps I left.

I struggle with the rest of your message. I explicitly stated that I do not expect people to enjoy specific books written by BIPOC authors, simply that I've noticed a very frustrating pattern. And yet you suggest I'm saying that if someone doesn't like Babel or The Hurricane Wars, I'm saying they're racist. Be serious.

Even as a child of multigenerational immigrants, I'll freely admit that I personally have a very US-centric perspective on social issues that I need to work on, but it's wild of you to say that all POC people born in the US are "pretty incapable of understanding" global issues.

When I wrote "marginalized" in the original post, what I really meant was "BIPOC and BIPOC queer people.” I should’ve been more careful about the wording.

Why white women in particular? When it comes to anti-colonial and anti-imperialist fiction (written by Anglophones) the authors that I see most highly and frequently praised are white women. I'd list the specific ones I'm talking about here, but 1. I don't want to be hunted for sport by their fans, 2. I've actually enjoyed some of their work, and 3. they're only a small part of the problem and I think people should be allowed to write whatever they want as long as they can handle the criticism. But I'm sorry, white women. I'll do better next time. I also want to use this moment to apologize to all the dumbasses complaining about my tone/me being "shouty." Reverse racism is real, and we must all stand vigilant hahaha miss me

You telling me to be humble feels a tad hypocritical, but sure, I'll take that under advisement.

#science fiction #fantasy #babel #the hurricane wars #the poppy war #books #asks