Gimble vice and a fleshlight?

Keep in mind our categories are pretty arbitrary. We have stuff like semimetals and so on. All bonding has multiple characteristics outside of extremes, e.g. covalent bonds with dipole character.

Metals are just our name for the broad category of bonding between extremes at conditions we usually find on earth where we live. They are soft squashy bonds that are kinda slutty because they’re just sort of average.

Actually within the metals we see some pretty different characteristics, especially with D orbital chemistry stuff but because of inertia we just keep these things all in the same category of metals because shiny squishy was a lot more obvious than fucky wucky complexing when people named them.

Tobias. Totes tragic.

Rachel becoming a fucked up person who only knew how to live in war was also great.

Tomorrow when the war began was another childhood fave of mine.

I wouldn’t say that sort of stuff was unheard of. My mum gave me some super tragic books about Polish kids during the war, there was loads of stuff with like thawing dead soldiers enough to steal boots etc. My mum’s Polish so fed me a lot of grim stuff to read to help understand her parents and their experiences. Idk if you’re usaian? maybe popular stuff was a bit more sanitised because of moral majority stuff?

Because children are interested in darkness and fiction is a safe place to explore it and contextualise it?

You’ve never pulled someone’s dick off in a fight through their trousers?

Tell me again how you know how to fight 🙄

Oh destroy property or whatever just don’t be cruel to people :p

Even if that was true effectiveness is never acceptable justification for cruelty

Me approaching Foss developer with bug: Pardon me, if you could grace this lowly worm with but a moment of your attention; I with me a bug report, and I believe I have found the section of code responsible. This inadequate being lacks the technical expertise to fix it and would be eternally indebted if you would turn your monumental skills upon its trifling problems. It would please me immensely if my paltry efforts were of some assistance.

This user: SOFTWARE NO WORK FUCK YOU!

Yeah it’s pretty bad here. In my state a parent’s “right” to hit their child is specifically enshrined in law, because otherwise it would be battery. You know, because hitting people is frowned on and you can go to gaol for it, unless your victims are defenseless and trust you utterly.

The V word makes people go nuts because they know they ought to be.

Notice how nobody is flipping out about my preference for people unfraid of getting their hands dirty, or imagine if I had written Buddhist. Would anyone have replied that it’s a red flag for them or written weird fantasies about anti Buddhist violence?

It upsets people because we all know killing animals is wrong. It’s easy and it’s tasty though. We tell ourselves it’s ok because everyone else is, but then a vegan comes along and the illusion shatters.

Earthlings are all of us, all sentient beings. We are from earth, we are the earthlings.

Like not just plowing through birds foraging, or lizards sunbaking, or ants doing a nuptial flight or whatever.

Considering others’ right to use space equal to their own.

I’m not going to hide my values. They’re not shameful

I’m not a saint. If people are going to try and hurt me I’m going to ridicule them.

Go audit what that person has said.

Besides maybe I’m a piece of shit, there’s no guarrantee I fulfill my own green flags.

I actually frequently identify myself as a human garbage fire, which is funny really. Like I am a human garbage fire and even I am vegan, so what does that make non vegans?

but it’s not the legal repurcussions that make you listen. If anything they undermine, as you need to establish whether advice is genuine or somebody throwing their weight around.

I’m not sure I follow. For the purposes of my example the firefighter has no legal recourse if you don’t listen. They’re just random volunteers where I live.

I don’t want to get too hung up on definitions because that’s counter productive I think. So what I’m talking about is that sometimes humans rely on power, real or perceived, in order to demand that others subsume their own desires and submit to those of the powerful.

Examples are police and other violent gangs - do what I say or I shoot you, capitalists - work for me or I will starve you, shitty parents - do what I say or I will hurt you.

I am calling that authority, notice that at no point is there consent from the person authority is being claimed over (it’s not consent if it’s coerced).

On the other hand people sometimes agree to perform certain roles with each other, or to be bound by certain rules in order to undertake some endeavour. For example when I am teaching my niece science she agrees to solve the problems I ask her to solve, but there is no coercion here. She is free to say at any moment “no” and I am free to either withdraw my offer to teach, ask a different question, propose a break or whatever else. Similarly working groups might elect someone among them to manage a project, but this isn’t authority (as I have defined above) if they are free to relect a project manager, refuse directions or whatever.

Various writers have waffled to varying extents trying to pin down specific definitions. I side with those who think it’s clearer to distinguish between the two social arrangements by not calling the second one authority.

why respect someone who’s threatening you? That’s the implicit case with authority “bow to me or I will make you suffer”

Who gains anything there except the authoritarian? Why do you want people to respect that?

We get on with each other fine without it.

I missed this.

Violent thugs claim authority regardless of the source. The cops claim the law enables them to torture you into compliance, the gangs claim it by right of might.

The reason is not relevant, laugh at them all (where doing so won’t get you killed).

This doesn’t mean fuck rules or cooperation. If my friends and I play a board game we all agree to be bound by collective rules for the pursuit of some mutual fun. Of course nobody has authority in the same sense, anyone is free to say “I don’t think this rule is fun, can we change it?” or “I’m not having fun right now, I’m sorry but I’d like to stop playing”.

I love people who help others, I just also love it when those helpful people burst out laughing when someone says “that’s Mr Bossman to you!”.

As to your reply to other person, yeah a lot of people don’t respect authority and laugh at it. I think it’s a green flag. Some people kiss the ring and lick the boot. Those people scare me because I can’t think of any reason except that they dream of being over another.

putting down the wheel of time and reading the malazan book of the fallen would be a pretty cool thing to do ;)

See that breaks down when there are victims. Even if we stick to non human animals I’m sure you have negative opinions about some of the following: whaling, dog fighting, dog eating, skinning cats, horse racing, circus animals, pet hoarding, shark nets.

Like everyone is familiar with the idea that there are acceptable ways to seek pleasure in the world and some line beyond which they say “no you’re victimising another for your own gain. I do not think that is acceptable”. Even anti vegans rarely endorse arbitrary use of non human animals for pleasure.

So you are probably comfortable with the idea that you can’t just say “live and let live” and be done with it. That works for whether you want to plant red roses and I want to plant pink ones, or you like toffee and I like cake. It doesn’t apply when lives are on the line.

Killing/hurting beings that want to live and suffer when you don’t have to is wrong. It is a wrong thing to do.

Nobody should feel shame for what their body can do. That doesn’t mean we should do it.

We have all sorts of abilities, we can drop kick babies for example. Doesn’t mean you should do that.