I’ll respond to this because I’m a father and have observed a lot of things about other parents that I never noticed or paid attention to before becoming one. There are some seriously selfish-ass people who treat their kids like accessories or tea-cup dogs. On the other end of the spectrum, there are people who treat their kids as franchises or property and view the kid in terms of ROI.
Some people only find value in themselves as mothers or fathers (“I’m the goddamn pater familias!”) where the role is often more important than the kids. While the act of parenting can be selfless, there is a performative element to it that takes over some people’s identities and personalities (clothing that advertises your “parent-ness,” name-brand clothing, chic and fashionable accessories, strollers that cost as much as a used car, humongous houses and baby suites, paying for full- or part-time help, excessively documenting “baby’s” life and sharing it widely beyond friends and family, et cetera and ad nauseam).
Now, there’s another take on selfishness I’ve picked up on from anti-natalist threads which is specifically tied to the concept of agency: a child has no agency regarding the circumstances of its birth. The fact that two people can intentionally (or even worse, unintentionally) choose to procreate is viewed as immensely selfish since it denies the created being of all choice. Parents often “want” to have a kid; but there is often no “need” (biological imperative notwithstanding). Hence, a selfish act.
Another expression of selfishness is that some parents cannot help themselves from creating clones. From birth, the kid is a reflection of the parents’ identity, interests, politics, hobbies, and media fandoms. The political or religious parts are especially disturbing—no kid has a valid opinion of the election and has no solid foundation for belief in a deity. Raising kids with values is one thing, but creating little mouthpieces that just repeat parents’ opinions is another. There is also the chance that a parent will try to live vicariously through their child and push them into sports or academics so that they can fix their mistakes or relive the past.
All said, some people make really shitty parents. And I don’t mean shitty people—there are lots of pleasant and thoughtful people who are fucking terrible caregivers. I think that some people felt too much social, cultural, or religious pressure to be honest with themselves and stay away from parenting. I think that nothing says selfish like knowing that you shouldn’t do something but do it anyway because you know that you will benefit from it in some way (financially, socially, etc.).
This is a world-building element of Heinlein’s posthumous novel, For Us the Living, where UBI allows people to do art or other low-pay trades. The UBI system in the novel enables people who don’t want to work, are tired of work, or who aren’t good at working, to live and pursue what does make them happy since their livelihood doesn’t rely on working a job. Of course, Heinlein has some libertarian nonsense to harp on in the book, but it’s wild just how long we’ve known that there is enough to take care of us all and that working to live is a detriment individually and collectively.
It’s an appeal to vanity (a troll). Trump is wildly vain and if he thinks this qualifies him for a Nobel (it doesn’t) then he might just put the worm back in its jar for awhile.
There’s a really tacky element to Trump’s merch and propaganda that just screams grandma with clip art to me. There’s no coherent design ethos. The computer democratized the tools of design, but not the skill and thought of design.
The fascists of the past capitalized on the fact that they could control art schools and design firms and direct their output to serve the state. Our fascists defunded all of the art programs and refuse to value the work of experts, so we’re stuck with interns applying metallic effects to Times New Roman using pirated photoshop 7.0.
But I agree, nothing of value will be lost when it’s burned.
There’s no need to prove that Spakovsky’s father was a Nazi to explain or hold Spakovsky accountable for his beliefs and actions. Any attempt to do so is a waste of time and a distraction. It also echoes the idea that children inherit the sins of their parents, which I believe is in line with authoritarian thought.
An interesting counter example:
Stephen Miller was born in California, is Jewish, specifically descended from Eastern Europeans who escaped pogroms, the grandchild of immigrants, and the child of democrats one of which was a social worker. Why is he acting so much like a fascist and a key member of an administration that apparently hates California, democracy, social programs, and is hell bent on starting its own anti-immigrant pogroms?
Judge a piece of shit for who they are, not because they come from a long line of pieces of shit.
Spakovsky or Shpakovskii isn’t in there, but I wouldn’t have expected a sociologist who had been out of work in his field for over a decade to be paper clipped.
I put my groceries on the belt in the order they’re supposed to be bagged. Heavy stuff first (cans, milk, juice, frozen stuff), followed by meat, dry goods, then heavy produce, soft produce, eggs, then bread.
Most of the time it only benefits me since everywhere I shop just got rid of cashier bagging or baggers entirely after the pandemic. But the rare time a cashier bags I watch as they go out of their way to put cans on top of avocados.
Another more practical reason (besides free bags for use around the house) is that produce is often wet from the misters and refrigerated items condensate once you go outside (especially in the south). Double bagging helps prevent the bags from tearing if/when they get wet. Also, for people buying lots of canned goods, single bags can rip if they’re overloaded. Cashiers and baggers will still double bag plastic bags when they are filling it with a lot of heavy items.
Another reuse for brown paper grocery bags was DIY textbook covers.
I have to use Windows and Teams for work and I’m starting to feel like a computer historian or an operating system archeologist every time I use my work PC.
Someone called me directly on Teams the other day and the old Skype ringtone played; now I already knew that MS absorbed Skype but it was weird because the actual ringtone is sort of low-fi, like it’s probably the same 20 year old .wav file.
I’m pretty sure the new W11 file explorer is just Edge which is just Chrome.
I feel like I’m looking at geological layers whenever I dive into OS settings.
Some window skins are clearly from Vista.
Aesthetically it is a nightmare, but it also clearly demonstrates that W11 is six operating systems in a trenchcoat.
It’s because trans technology is so advanced that they all pass undetected. /s
In all seriousness, I think it reflects just how distorted the anti-trans bigot’s perception of reality is and how enabled they feel to act on those perceptions. These people believe that trans people are more common than they actually are and they are hyper-fixated on proving it.
I think your critique of the “not a problem until it affects me” nature of this is valid; however, this also signifies that transphobia is becoming less rhetorical and more actionable. That is terrifying for anyone who doesn’t meet the arbitrary socially acceptable expressions of gender.
My hope here is that more people will come to realize how stupid transphobia and gender/bathroom policing is when they start to realize that it affects them, too.
I did, however, have the unfortunate experience of studying a degree that required four sequential semesters of courses that started at 8AM. Granted, I could have solved that problem by changing majors, but here I am. Once those classes were over, all of my classes were between 11AM and 3PM.
I deal with shy hyphens a lot. They don’t display unless there’s a line break, so they get copied from various word docs or websites and end up in a database somewhere waiting to piss me off.
The axe and bundle of sticks is called a fasces. It is an ancient Roman symbol of absolute power of the law displayed by magistrates to indicate they had the authority to kill you. It evolved in meaning over time and generally became a symbol of the power of the state.
The word fascism is derived from fasces and the symbol was used by the Italian fascists in the 1930s and 1940s. It is also prominent in US iconography predating the rise of fascism in Italy in the 30s and can be found inside the Congress building, the pediment of the Supreme Court building, and was once featured on coinage, specifically the Mercury Dime.
The other flag is the is the Flag of Falange. The Falange, like the fasces, is an old symbol of power; however unique to Spain. The yoke and arrows symbol date back to the 15th century and were created when Isabella and Ferdinand married.
The Falange was the symbol used by the Nationalists, specifically the Falangists, during the Spanish Civil war in the 1930s. The Franco dictatorship that emerged was a brutal autocratic regime (and the Falangists are part of the European rise of fascism in the 1930s).
The yoke and arrows, like the fasces can be found on flags, documents, and statues prior to the rise of fascism. But, like the swastika, there’s no going back once associated with a fascist movement. These are nationalist, fascist, and authoritarian symbols.
I remember a buffet place—it may have been a Golden Corral, not sure—that had a sealed off smoking section with a glass wall, one of those “air doors” above the sliding door that function like an air lock, and a separate AC system.
It was always weird to look into that space and watch the lonely people smoking and eating.
Every other restaurant was a smoking free-for-all.
derfunkatron @ derfunkatron @lemmy.world Posts 0Comments 139Joined 2 yr. ago
I’ll respond to this because I’m a father and have observed a lot of things about other parents that I never noticed or paid attention to before becoming one. There are some seriously selfish-ass people who treat their kids like accessories or tea-cup dogs. On the other end of the spectrum, there are people who treat their kids as franchises or property and view the kid in terms of ROI.
Some people only find value in themselves as mothers or fathers (“I’m the goddamn pater familias!”) where the role is often more important than the kids. While the act of parenting can be selfless, there is a performative element to it that takes over some people’s identities and personalities (clothing that advertises your “parent-ness,” name-brand clothing, chic and fashionable accessories, strollers that cost as much as a used car, humongous houses and baby suites, paying for full- or part-time help, excessively documenting “baby’s” life and sharing it widely beyond friends and family, et cetera and ad nauseam).
Now, there’s another take on selfishness I’ve picked up on from anti-natalist threads which is specifically tied to the concept of agency: a child has no agency regarding the circumstances of its birth. The fact that two people can intentionally (or even worse, unintentionally) choose to procreate is viewed as immensely selfish since it denies the created being of all choice. Parents often “want” to have a kid; but there is often no “need” (biological imperative notwithstanding). Hence, a selfish act.
Another expression of selfishness is that some parents cannot help themselves from creating clones. From birth, the kid is a reflection of the parents’ identity, interests, politics, hobbies, and media fandoms. The political or religious parts are especially disturbing—no kid has a valid opinion of the election and has no solid foundation for belief in a deity. Raising kids with values is one thing, but creating little mouthpieces that just repeat parents’ opinions is another. There is also the chance that a parent will try to live vicariously through their child and push them into sports or academics so that they can fix their mistakes or relive the past.
All said, some people make really shitty parents. And I don’t mean shitty people—there are lots of pleasant and thoughtful people who are fucking terrible caregivers. I think that some people felt too much social, cultural, or religious pressure to be honest with themselves and stay away from parenting. I think that nothing says selfish like knowing that you shouldn’t do something but do it anyway because you know that you will benefit from it in some way (financially, socially, etc.).