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lewishcmilton · 2 years

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is...........

#THE UNTHINKABLE

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thebookbin · 5 months

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The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes—And Why

Amanda Ripley

Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (Penguin Random House) Genre: sociology, psychology Year: 2008

Is there a point in every girl's life when she is obsessed with disasters? I remember accidentally pulling an all-nighter watching tsunami videos only a few years ago. Maybe it was the fact that when I was in kindergarten when 9/11 happened, that year and every year after our teachers, media, and government set out on retraumatizing us every year, forcing us to watch videos of it, watch documentaries of the people who jumped to their deaths, forced us to revere the men who went to war to traumatize a whole new generation of children. And I've lived through a few disasters of my own. I survived Harvey in 2017. I survived getting caught in a tornado. Who wouldn't be curious? It's that curiosity that drove me to pick up The Unthinkable and in the end to be disappointed by its lackluster offering.

Fundamentally, I think this book suffers as a product of its time. Published in 2008, and surely years in the making, this book cannot escape the perverse fascination of a post 9/11 world and all that it entails. Ripley spends an inordinate amount of time on the World Trade Center, survivors, and Ground Zero stories. Despite claiming to be interested in the average person, Ripley almost solely focuses on soldiers, policemen, and special forces stories and studies, and only scales her research to a white western audience, which she tacitly acknowledges.

Despite feeling a certain kinship with Ripley over our interest in disasters and how people respond to them, I found myself almost disgusted with how uncurious she seems to be about the most interesting questions she poses (and then abruptly brushes aside). At her core, Ripley is a bioessentialist and a skeptic. She believes in a rigid and inflexible binary that colors everything. You are the sum of the labels foisted upon you. Altruism is nothing except an evolutionary biproduct of breeding rituals: looking like a hero makes you appeal to the women around you—a woman being a hero? We don't do that here—and if you die being heroic then the women in your family will get more attention and therefore breed and make more babies ensuring your genetic material lives on.

Ripley briefly acknowledges that men are more likely to be labeled as "heroes" as a by product of them having more dangerous jobs in general, or being more prone to engage in risky behavior but is so dispassionate about exploring the reasons why. Combined with her hero-worship of the people who do the most harm in this world: soldiers, police, and special forces, it seems like Ripley is trying her best to appease a male audience who won't take her seriously unless she engages in the imperialist circle-jerk of the military industrial complex.

Ripley is also incapable of removing herself from the narrative, even though she claims to be a journalist. She dedicates an entire chapter to, bizarrely enough, the size of her amygdala. Instead of acknowledging her own humanity as a subjective and connective force of her storytelling, Ripley feels the need to insert herself into the narrative alongside the survivors she interviews, despite not being a survivor herself (or acknowledging herself as one). She's like a child at a birthday party, incessantly reminding everyone else it's her birthday next week. We can indulge you once or twice, but after that "Honey, it's not your turn. Let someone else have a go."

This is an ambitious work that falls short of its goal. Despite its claims it did not introduce me to my "disaster personality" nor did it pose any questions that I had not already asked myself as a person with an interest in disaster, who has survived one or two of her own. I can't quite tell if this work suffers as a product of its time, or if Ripley was simply a poor messenger for its delivery

storygraph | bookshop.org | local houston

★★ sad, uncurious stars

#book review #the unthinkable #amanda ripley #nonfiction #two stars #psychology #sociology #disappointing #i disagree #iffy writing #meh #such potential #women writers #2008 #featured

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movie--posters · 6 months

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#the unthinkable #movie poster #movi eposter #smovi eposter #movie posters #movie #poster #film #fun #good fun

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troythecatfish · 8 months

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Here’s my personal recommendation of a YouTube video to check out:

youtube

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approximateknowledge · 2 months

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once you learn enough about evolutionary biology you start seeing ghosts everywhere

#everything alive carries within it the traces of its ancestors' niches #and also some niches are just eerily *empty* where they were once full #and im not talking like “the megafauna here got eradicated by human intervention and hunting and habitat loss”#i mean it in the “there hasn't been a proper aerial macropredator since the azadrchids went extinct 65 million years ago”-sense #which is something you cannot unthink or unsee #especially in island ecosystems

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greencarnation · 6 months

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eleven is fascinating to me because he came right off the back of tens horrible traumatic breakdown after he lost everything and he immediately tried to establish himself as the opposite of that. he is funny and goofy and almost childlike, and he bulldozes on in his adventures with amy like nothing happened at all. but then something happens and his masks slips and it's like oh! the core of this man is still anger. he is so so angry all of the time and this façade is the only thing stopping him from being consumed by it. he isn't over any of it and he hasn't moved on. he is wearing a fez and laughing but under that all that exists is age old anger and grief and it is going to consume him

#i do think that this pit of anger was eventually covered and soothed by the ponds #but he didn't adress it and he couldn't even look at it until he was twelve #when he stopped pushing back and repressing everything and finally allowed himself to exist as he was #but ok listen #its all layed out in the first 3 episodes of season 5 and in the way amy sees him #episode 1. here is the new doctor he is energetic and reeling and fun #episode 2. the space whale comparison. here is the new doctor. he is unthinkably ancient and almost godlike but he is so so kind #and patient and good. he is ancient and lonely but he can't stand to see children cry. so the doctor helps people #episode 3. daleks. the doctor is a soldier. these are his age old enemies. he wants them dead and he will stop at nothing #all logic and reason vanish. he is hitting the dalek with a pipe and yelling his head off while amy watches in horror #like obviously we know why but amy didnt #this is not a sane or rational man he is unstable and angry #and in that episode he was stripped back to what he largely is: hate #you would make a good dalek ect ect ect #anyway 3 episodes with 3 very distinct and equally definitely traits layed out like: here you go #i don't like elevens era much but those first 3 episodes were great #doctor who #eleven #amy #eleventh doctor #matt smith #dr who #dw #i mean idk this is what river literally had to spell out for him #eleven was careening completely out of control #how long til doctor means warrior indeed?#mine

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just-an-idiotic-nerd · 2 years

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#bnha #fic #fanfic #the unthinkable

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wearenotjustnumbers2 · 7 months

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Trigger warning* No disturbing images or graphic footage just a mother screaming.

Imagine working 24/7 in a hospital that barely functions and has been warned to evacuate multiple times this week, being overworked and exhausted with not enough food or water, treating injuries all day. Only to find the doctors coming in with one more patient, which turns out to be your daughter on a gurney. This is horrifying.

From what I found out, her daughter is thankfully alive but is in critical condition.

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cheekylittlepupp · 3 months

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The things I would do for him...

#astarion #bg3 #astarion ancunin #baldur's gate 3 #mims posts ~#bg3 astarion #astarion screenshots #baldur's gate iii #bg3 screenshots #baldurs gate 3 #this man's eyes can make me do unthinkable things #he can tell me to jump and all ill ask is how high #baldurs gate 3 astarion

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the-maw-consumes · 2 months

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me @ unsuspecting tumblr users blogging in peace

#good omens #boop #boop o meter #the amount of serotonin the boop button has given me cannot be measured #the power of the boop is unthinkable

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weirdlookindog · 5 months

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Lawrence Sterne Stevens - Unthinkable

(Famous Fantastic Mysteries - December 1946)

#lawrence sterne stevens #unthinkable #the hand of doom #francis sibson #famous fantastic mysteries #pulp art #horror art #death in art #art #illustration

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janirah · 3 months

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You will see me, one day.

#malevolent #john doe malevolent #arthur lester malevolent #to reach the unthinkable

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dr-chalk · 11 months

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Sorry kid, nothing personal

#lego monkie kid #lmk sun wukong #lmk macaque #lmk MK #shadowpeach #if I can even tag it as that #myart #yeah I think about s1e9 all the time #the deeper you look into macaque’s state of mind and motivations in that ep the more concerning it all becomes #anyways I love these awful monkeys who behave in ways unthinkable to the average human <3 #cw blood #cw injury

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spiralstain · 2 years

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#obsessed with their dynamic actually #how did these two asshole pretend to be besties for 7 whole years. insane. unthinkable.

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bonesandthebees · 6 days

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I’m grateful to qsmp for a lot of beautiful reasons many others have articulated better than I can but one of the greatest gifts it gave us is that we now regularly get to witness philza minecraft flirting with the homies

#yes I’m watching etoiles and phil rn and I lost my mind at phil saying he has two hands #unthinkable sentence from 2021 phil #liveblogging #kind of

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moon-mirage · 8 months

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Alliance

Rue and Katniss

#the hunger games #thg #katniss everdeen #rue #i think it must have been so rare to have alliance between districts in the games #katniss was a capital favourite #i doubt there was much attention on rue #in other games this alliance would have been unthinkable #but it was one of the sparks that led to the revolution #and i think many people saw that katniss and rue genuinely liked each other

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