timberwraith

timberwraith , 1 month ago to random

When I look at Israel, the united states, Russia, or any number of other incredibly violent, colonizing, militarized shit shows of countries, I don't limit my observations to the histories, cultures, political systems, etc. that specifically reflect those countries.

I don't think the larger pattern is an Israeli, usian, or a Russian problem.

I see living breathing specters of collective horror which represent the failings of our species in super-concentrated forms.

That's what I see.

timberwraith OP , 1 month ago

It's not like the mindless march to war, to group violence, to inter-group hatred, to genocide, etc. is a new phenomenon.

Our species has been doing this shit largely since we've had a species and there have been enough of us to gather together in large groups to slaughter each other.

And those weirdos like me, and the people in the anti-war demos across the country, are ALWAYS portrayed as the people with the problems.

timberwraith OP , 1 month ago

We're portrayed as cowards, as effeminate losers, as anti-american, as antisemetic, as communists, as terrorist sympathizers, as traitors, and as supporters of "the other side" whomever the "other side" might be in the moment.

The people who oppose mass violence, who oppose war, who oppose mass slaughter, rape, and pillaging are ALWAYS portrayed as a mass of unhinged evil who oppose the forces of good.

Always.

Natasha_Jay , 2 months ago to random

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

timberwraith , 2 months ago

@Natasha_Jay 😂😂😂

timberwraith , 2 months ago

@Natasha_Jay It's a 1968 Toyota Corolla.

Or it was before time and space distorted.

https://automotorpad.com/toyota/112554-1968-toyota-corolla.html

intransitivelie , 2 months ago to random

Damn it, it's cicada summer and I keep forgetting and being reminded anew. Fucking cicadas.

timberwraith , 2 months ago

@intransitivelie Wait, the little red eyed variant is coming out that far east? I didn't realize they'd be there too?

timberwraith , 2 months ago

@intransitivelie (They don't live in MN, btw. So, I just read about them and wonder.)

lowqualityfacts , 3 months ago to random

The main purpose of a coffin is to contain the teeth.
https://patreon.com/lowqualityfacts

timberwraith , 3 months ago

@lowqualityfacts That's it. I'm definitely opting for cremation. 😬

lowqualityfacts , 4 months ago to random

I'm surprised that so many people don't know this.
https://patreon.com/lowqualityfacts

timberwraith , 4 months ago

@lowqualityfacts My gods, this puts a whole new spin on hummus! 🤯

timberwraith , 4 months ago to random

I was around the online spaces of New Atheism from about 2010 to its decline. It reminded me so much of a high school boy's locker room.

The subculture was permeated with "my intellect is bigger than your intellect" male ego stroking. Most of the exchanges consisted of verbal battles that were basically adolescent male insult matches with a thin veneer of intellectualism slathered on top.

It was a community rife with toxic masculinity that ran on a discourse dominated by white men.

timberwraith OP , 4 months ago

The New Atheism to alt-right/fascist pipeline was inevitable because New Atheism's toxic white male culture provided a rich medium in which such reactionary thinking breeds readily.

New Atheism was basically an over-glorified intellectual cock waving contest in which its participants were obsessed with positioning themselves as the superior members of a social hierarchy.

It's not all that mysterious that this degraded into fascism later on.

It would have been surprising if it hadn't.

timberwraith OP , 4 months ago

As far as New Atheism's ties with transphobia go, the community was rife with misogyny and it widely embraced pseudo-science surrounding sex/gender. There was a strong strain of "men and women are just different because of evolutionary biology's influence over human genetics."

timberwraith OP , 4 months ago

A hatred of gender non-conformity tends to be the outcome in a community that places a heavy emphasis on essentialized notions of maleness and femaleness.

Under that ideology, trans people are viewed as a delusional violation of nature itself. We are mad hatters who think we defy the innate essential nature of masculinity and femininity.

To many New Atheists, our transness was just another religion defying the biological reality of evolution with hair-brained self deceptive ideology.

timberwraith OP , 4 months ago

Those are the finer details of why New Atheism turned into an engine of transphobic bigotry.

If you want a simpler explanation though, it's this: toxic masculinity walks hand in had with gender conformity and transness violates the assumptions of gender conformity.

The rest is just intellectual rationalization of a prejudice they felt in their guts toward us because we threaten a sense of cis male entitlement bound in the comfort of sex/gender conformity.