#as an institution

[attackofthespaceturtles]

I saw an op ed in the paper this week about how Colorado's new free breakfast program for kids is bad actually because it's training children to depend on the government. I am still in awe that someone could actually say those words without a hint of irony. No giving food to hungry children because it's their fault if they can't pull themselves up by their bootstraps. What the fuck is wrong with some people?

All of this reminds me why I left the church and Christianity. I took my faith Very Seriously as a child/teen and Jesus said to feed the hungry kids. I had always assumed this was the least controversial take in the world. Of course feeding the hungry is good!

I didn't realize until I was older that most people who proclaim to be Christians don't actually give a damn. I have heard self proclaimed Christians callously say things like homeless kids deserve to die on the street because they were burdening society. It's when I realized that nobody actually takes Christianity seriously, and Christians least of all. They just want to feel morally superior to everyone else at best and at worst con people out of their money.

I still feel so betrayed. I built my whole moral code around this faith, but in the end I was lied to. It feels like the whole world was in on a big joke that I treated seriously.

At least I know better now.

#i know not every christian is like this #i have some wonderful friends who are christians and good people #but as a whole #as an institution #the church does very little good for society #most of these people do not practice what they preach #i should know because they all turned their backs on me the moment i came out as anything other than cis and straight #these people who preached the beauty and power of unconditional love #but their love was conditional all along #ky speaks #my thoughts #rambles #religion #religious trauma

[ihateliterature]

I don't think people realize how baked into society monogamy is and that is the whole proof you need for it

Not to say that there is something bad about monogamy in itself but there is a saying where I come from "Ce-i prea mult, nu e bun" which basically means that too much of anything (even smth was was originally good or neutral) is never good

This is the case with monogamy, actually with amatonormativity in general. We are teaching children since diapers that the only way to be happy is to find a monogamous partner, we are preparing little girls for motherhood since they can barely walk, this is not how a healthy society treats it's children

Times of crisis show how hard it comes for unmarried partners, especially queer unmarried partners. Covid, the war and the AIDS crisis before that

The economy shows us that being single can be an active detriment to your finances. Some loans are almost impossible to pay on a single salary, buying a house in some economies (specifically in the US, as I have heard) without two working adults is almost laughable

And the idea that "marriage equality" is achieved is a fucking joke. Same-sex marriages are not legal in most countries, polyamorous marriages too, numerous people are trying to put sexless marriages on the list of things destroying western civilisation and from what I understand some disabled people can lose their benefits if they get married

Damned of you do damned if you don't

Yes, some can marry for tax benefits, many queer people do that. But instead of that how about we strive for a world where marriage is not a point of debate and where the choice to not participate in it doesn't put you at any disadvantage

#marriage #aromantic #asexual #queer #amatonormativity #marriage sucks #as an institution #is rotten to the core #either fix it or get rid of it

[jvlianbashir]

"haha these alpha trad men really just have dom/sub kinks!" i know misogyny isn't real to a lot of you guys but did you know that some people just actually do genuinely think women are inferior creatures

#i dont normally make posts like this but ive seen MULTIPLE??? posts floating around that are meant as jokes saying #'haha *deeply misogynistic attitude/institution* is basically just kink! ;P' #and no one challenging it or if they do theyre seen as buzzkills or anti-sex/anti-kink #well im neither of those and i keep seeing it and its getting to me #not st #doctor's log

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

#due to the Great Data Decay academics write viciously argumentative articles on which episodes aired in what order #at conferences professors have known to engage in physically violent altercations whilst debating the air date number of household viewers #90% of the couch gags have been lost and there is a billion dollar trade in counterfeit “lost copies” #serious note: i'll be honest i always assumed it was english imperialism that made shakespeare so inescapable in the 19th/20th cent #like his writing should have become obscure at the same level of his contemporaries #but british imperialists needed an ENGLISH LANGUAGE (and BRITISH) writer to venerate #and shakespeare wrote so many damn things that there was a humongous body of work just sitting there waiting to be culturally exploited... #i know it didn't happen like this but i imagine a English Parliament House Committee Member For The Education Of The Masses or something #cartoonishly stumbling over a dusty cobwebbed crate labelled the Complete Works of Shakespeare #and going 'Eureka! this shall make excellent propoganda for fabricating a national identity in a time of great social unrest. #it will be a cornerstone of our elitist educational institutions for centuries to come! long live our decaying empire!' #'what good fortune that this used to be accessible and entertaining to mainstream illiterate audience members... #..but now we can strip that away and make it a difficult & alienating foundation of a Classical Education! just like the latin language :)' #anyway maybe there's no such thing as the 'greatest writer of x language' in ANY language? #maybe there are just different styles and yes levels of expertise and skill but also a high degree of subjectivity #and variance in the way that we as individuals and members of different cultures/time periods experience any work of media #and that's okay! and should be acknowledged!!! and allow us to give ourselves permission to broaden our horizons #and explore the stories of marginalized/underappreciated creators #instead of worshiping the List of Top 10 Best (aka Most Famous) Whatevers Of All Time/A Certain Time Period #anyways things are famous for a reason and that reason has little to do with innate “value” #and much more to do with how it plays into the interests of powerful institutions motivated to influence our shared cultural narratives #so i'm not saying 'stop teaching shakespeare'. but like...maybe classrooms should stop using it as busy work that (by accident or designs) #happens to alienate a large number of students who could otherwise be engaging critically with works that feel more relevant to their world #(by merit of not being 4 centuries old or lacking necessary historical context or requiring untaught translation skills) #and yeah...MAYBE our educational institutions could spend less time/money on shakespeare critical analysis and more on... #...any of thousands of underfunded areas of literary research i literally (pun!) don't know where to begin #oh and p.s. the modern publishing world is in shambles and it would be neat if schoolwork could include modern works? #beautiful complicated socially relevant works of literature are published every year. it's not just the 'classics' that have value #and actually modern publications are probably an easier way for students to learn the basics. since lesson plans don't have to include the #important historical/cultural context many teens need for 20+ year old media (which is older than their entire lived experience fyi)

[finleycannotdraw]

I like to think combat training for these two became more complicated as they got older, if you know what I mean

I colored the last one first and then lowered my standards. give it up for 10yo ambrosius and his glaringly yellow shirt

#also I realized while drawing this that I’ve been making his hair longer than it is in the movie #oh well #nimona #nimona 2023 #nimona movie #ballister boldheart #ambrosius goldenloin #ballister x ambrosius #goldenheart #finley cannot draw #I learned that I do not draw children very often #it’s FINEEEEE #anyway. I live for content of the boys in their institute era. mutual pining. sappiness. never being able to tell anyone. #increasingly charged sparring practice #YOU GET IT

[the-crim-rat]

“kill them with kindness” wrong. ceaseless watcher gaze your eyes upon this wretched thing👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️

#tma #the magnus institute #has this joke been made already #tma shitpost #tma jon #this is about the magnus archives #magnus archive #the magnus archive #the eye #tma the eye #the magnus archives #magnus archives #tma spoilers #jonathan sims #jon sims #ceaseless watcher #the ceaseless watcher #tma reference #tma podcast

[greyphitus]

Hey guys

There's a post going around about something called the "Invertebrate Studies Institute" needing help. A few comments made on the post made me curious, so I checked it out and it seems sketchy to me. (ETA: the post's OP is now aware of the situation and is trying to rectify things on their end, and are ok with my post getting more exposure. Read the notes for more info too!)

The institute is a startup and the owner has displayed misogynistic behavior. He made a company and received "$1.3 million in research grants from the USDA and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation" in 2011, but there aren't any research papers listed on the ISI website more recent than 2012 (sources: ISI website, People Behind the Science podcast transcript, All Things Bugs LLC webpage). It's possible his research is still a work in progress, but I would expect to see some genome sequencing work at the least since that seems to be a major focus.

Also, it's possible to ship frozen specimens in dry ice and have them be fine. Even stuff for molecular work and genome sequencing. So the inability to get help from other research groups, to where they're asking for a local freezer plug-in, is a bit weird to me.

Some screenshots below the cut, didn't screenshot everything since it's mostly just text, but I did cite the sources if you wanna read them yourself.

Not sure what the overall point is of this post is besides "seems sketch to me" but I saw a lot of people worrying on the initial post so I wanted to at least mention this stuff.

Comments from the tumblr post which sparked my initial concerns.

Screenshots from the LinkedIn link, with the initial contact and follow-up legal threat.

Screenshot from the ISI website talking about their facility and "initiative" (I noticed a lot of the wording on the website sounded like they hadn't done significant research, which also gave me pause).

And, for fun, the CDC guide on shipping frozen specimens.

#not photos #invertebrate studies institute #making my own post cause I don't want to signal boost the misogynist startup sorry #FYI OG post's OP is now aware of all this and does not support the scientist in being a shitbag or anything like that #they are trying to rectify the situation on their end #they just wanted to save the frozen science bugs

[imanerdnamedmariawhodoesart]

John used all his simussy in that line

#art #dibujo #draw #drawing #fanart #tma #the magnus institute #jonathan sims #the magnus archive fanart #the magnus archives #jon sims #jonmartin #the archivist #podcast #rusty quill

[reasonsforhope]

"The Biden Administration last week [early December, 2023] announced it would be seizing patents for drugs and drug manufacturing procedures developed using government money.

A draft of the new law, seen by Reuters, said that the government will consider various factors including whether a medical situation is leading to increased prices of the drug at any given time, or whether only a small section of Americans can afford it.

The new executive order is the first exercise in what is called “march-in-rights” which allows relevant government agencies to redistribute patents if they were generated under government funding. The NIH has long maintained march-in-rights, but previous directors have been unwilling to use them, fearing consequences.

“We’ll make it clear that when drug companies won’t sell taxpayer funded drugs at reasonable prices, we will be prepared to allow other companies to provide those drugs for less,” White House adviser Lael Brainard said on a press call.

But just how much taxpayer money is going toward funding drugs? A research paper from the Insitute for New Economic Thought showed that “NIH funding contributed to research associated with every new drug approved from 2010-2019, totaling $230 billion.”

The authors of the paper continue, writing “NIH funding also produced 22 thousand patents, which provided marketing exclusivity for 27 (8.6%) of the drugs approved [between] 2010-2019.”

How we do drug discovery and production in America has a number of fundamental flaws that have created problems in the health service industry.

It costs billions of dollars and sometimes as many as 5 to 10 years to bring a drug to market in the US, which means that only companies with massive financial muscle can do so with any regularity, and that smaller, more innovative companies can’t compete with these pharma giants.

This also means that if a company can’t recoup that loss, a single failed drug can result in massive disruptions to business. To protect themselves, pharmaceutical companies establish piles of patents on drugs and drug manufacturing procedures. Especially if the drug in question treats a rare or obscure disease, these patents essentially ensure the company has monoselective pricing regimes.

However, if a company can convince the NIH that a particular drug should be considered a public health priority, they can be almost entirely funded by the government, as the research paper showed.

Some market participants, in this case the famous billionaire investor Mark Cuban, have attempted to remedy the issue of drug costs in America by manufacturing generic versions of patented drugs sold for common diseases."

-via Good News Network, December 11, 2023

#united states #us politics #biden administration #executive order #prescription drugs #medical news #healthcare #healthcare access #biden #big pharma #drug prices #public health #nih #national institutes of health #good news #hope

[vickozone]

[major spoilers for S2, S4, S5]

The Magnus Archives is RED

[I’m back with more fake screenshots!] Part 1 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

#the magnus archives #tma #the magnus institute #magpod #magnuspod #tma fake screenshots #fake screenshot #tma fanart #tma spoilers #tma season 2 #tma s2 #tma s4 #tma season 4 #tma season 5 #tma s5 #tma jonathan sims #tma jon #tma elias #elias bouchard #jonathan sims #tma martin #martin blackwood #tma daisy #daisy tonner #tma basira #basira hussain #the magnus archive fanart #magnus archives #The hunt #the eye

[ciao2-bambi]

Around season 3

Jon knows he's changed a lot.

#jonathan sims #the magnus archives #the magnus institute #tma #tma podcast #the archivist #tma fanart #the magnus archive fanart #the airport guy is just my random oc don't mind him he's not canon

[its-your-mind]

Ruins of The Magnus Institute FACTS WE KNOW:

Someone (who runs an urban spelunking forum 👀👀👀) marked it as “cleared,” which has led to a lack of exploration

Pictures don’t upload to the internet and also just fucking. disappear.

People leave with a weird sense of paranoia

Scorch marks from fire 20 years ago 1999 (FIRE? 20 years ago??? Web bond gertrude/agnes hilltop road tree????????)

Third floor mostly gone

Feeling like doors were gonna close and TRAP YOU INSIDE

All! The! Fucking! Papers! In! The! Archive! Are! Gone! FUCK!!!

Old graffiti: symbols - also found on an empty wooden box???

Gross stains all over the floor (hello smooshed worms)

Only images posted (after graffiti images were promised) were of gross/gory Eyes

#tmagp #magp 01 #tmagp spoilers #the magnus protocol #tma spoilers #agnes montague #gertrude robinson #the magnus institute #jane prentiss #tmp spoilers

[gageisahomeboi]

Another one

#fallout #fallout memes #fo4 #crack #nuka world #fallout 2 #fallout 4 #fallout new vegas #fallout 3 #fallout 76 #fallout nv #fonv #fo3 #fo2 #sole survivor #Kellogg #fo4 Kellogg #institute #synth

[danascullysjournal]

“Oh, Archivist.”

It’s finished! Nikola Orsinov kidnapping Jon sent me spiraling so I had to paint it. The horrors he endures😵‍💫🥺 poor Jon. I don’t think the creators meant to have the wax figures melting but that’s how it is in my head

Detail below:

#tma fanart #tma #tma podcast #the magnus archives #john sims #jonathan sims #nikola orsinov #the unknowing #the magnus institute #tw: horror #tw: kidnapping #tw horror #tw kidnapping #“they’re wax figures. but not the good kind. 😳😐 #jon sims #the eye

[ladychlo]

This is the Palestine Film Institute website, it offers free access to multiple shorts, documentaries, films etc, as well as suggestions and a long list of cinematic art made by Palestinians.

This is Aflamuna, a non-profit platform dedicated to sharing independent films from the Arab region with audiences worldwide. Handpicked cult, classic, contemporary, and sometimes unreleased films that are mostly inaccessible to the public are made available free of charge every week. It has one of the most impactful Palestinian movies.

#palestine film institute #Aflamuna #palestine #gaza #library

[the-butterbun]

"Call me Gerry :)"

#fanart #the magnus archive fanart #the magnus institute #tma fanart #the magnus archives #the magnus pod #magnus pod #rusty quill tma #tma gerry #gerry keay #tmagp gerry #tmagp fanart #tmagp 8 #tmp fanart #tmp gerry #tmagp spoilers #the magnus protocol fanart #the magnus protocol #tmagp