I think 75% is far too generous an estimate, tbh. Every policy I’ve acquired through the ACA-mandated marketplace has been garbage, right from the start. For-profit health care is evil, and the ACA just served to further entrench this evil in our lives. It did some marginal good, and I’m certainly not advocating for its repeal in favor of ‘concepts of a plan’. But 75%? I can’t get on board with that.
I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but what the fuck is normal? Nobody’s really normal. Even the so-called neurotypical are riddled with undiagnosed disorders. Normalcy is just a social fiction. Don’t let it limit your options.
I think that you’re probably right. I also think I may be projecting a bit, and conflating my country’s apathetic embrace of fascism with my own executive dysfunction. Seems all of a piece. Anyhow, thanks for the words.
The thing is, it can be really hard to accurately assess why you feel an aversion to things, and whether or not that aversion is misplaced. I can come up with scads of seemingly reasonable objections to, for example, going to the gym. That doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t benefit from it.
Overcoming an innate aversion that you’ve convinced yourself is a part of who you are can be life-changing.
The big caveat there is that knowing things doesn’t change the world. Scads of people are acutely aware of the problems facing society—maybe more than at any time in history. Vanishingly few feel empowered to do anything about it.
I’m not pro-ignorance by any means; education is the silver bullet. But we urgently need to find better ways of translating our spectacular surfeit of knowledge into individually actionable mechanisms of social change.
He is, to quote Dan McCoy, a prolific motherfucker! I always enjoy his work.
Thanks, your post reminded me of an old friend who would get unreasonably upset when someone used that phrase. “What the fuck else would it be‽” he’d say. Good times.
You’ll note that this comment is also devoid of content, so it’s on theme!
An excellent notion! In the spirit of compromise, I’d be willing to accept exiling them to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. We could call 'em the Garbage Patch Kids!
No, you’re thinking of James Dean. Dean Cain’s the dipshit trumpet who played Superman on tv 30 years ago, and makes terrible hallmark movies.
Never occurred to me before, but a legally recognized opposite day would be like the purge.
I don’t attribute a lot of positive things to social media, but I will give it credit for turning me around on spiders. Arachnophobia scared the crap out of me as a kid. For years afterward, I’d never sit down on a toilet without first getting down on my hands and knees to make sure there weren’t any spiders lurking underneath the bowl. Thanks to years of spiderbro memes, now I generally view them as comrades.
Perhaps the Balrog underestimated Gandalf, thinking it could cast him into the abyss, then fly back up to deal with the rest of the Fellowship. Alternatively, maybe it calculated that its best chance of defeating the wizard was to grapple with him at close quarters. Either way, the Balrog falling doesn’t necessarily mean that it wasn’t capable of flight.
Because the apparently straight lines contradict the labels. As drawn, the unlabeled bottom vertices are clearly 90°, not 80° and 100°. We must either conclude that the labels are incorrect, or that the figure is not drawn to scale. Either way, it’s insoluble.
I’m looking forward to the inevitable Flop House episode.
I don’t think that most of the people we might consider evil have that level of self-awareness. Certainly those with a pathological lack of empathy are overrepresented in the highest echelons of power. It doesn’t logically follow that they see themselves as bad.
I saw him spewing garbage on tv at the gym a few months ago; no audio, luckily, but they always have a tv showing fox news, and it was right in my line of sight. The ridiculous shit he was constantly doing with his hands had me cracking up. It was so over-the-top, to the point of parody. I couldn’t stop laughing at the idea that anyone takes the chucklefuck seriously, just based on his moronic gesticulation schtick.
So yeah, let him keep doing insanely stupid shit with his hands.
I really appreciate this take. It’s good-hearted and makes good sense. I’ll try to remember it going forward, when cynicism overwhelms.
I really wish I’d just taken your word for it. That’s depressing.
People are saying it. Many great people.