I FOUND IT GUYS I SPENT HALF AN HOUR LOOKING FOR THIS VIDEO AND ITS HERE

YES

Worse

A pattern I have seen again and again in the last 24 hours:

Alice: X doesn’t help against Y, it only causes Z.

Bob: Your whining about Z only proves that you never cares about Y. If you really cared about Y, you’d think a little Z would be a worthwhile price to pay.

Alice: But Z by itself is not helping Y at all.

Bob: We already established that you shouldn’t care about Z, stop arguing.

kickstarter to send Scott back and forth on planes forever

Plane travel makes me high. No pun intended. When I’m in an airport, or on a plane, I get into a weird hypomanic state where I start feeling great about myself, making grandiose plans, feeling like the world is my oyster. I’m more creative, more ambitious. Sometimes I leverage this to get stuff done (usually write blog posts I’ve been putting off) at the airport or on the plane. Other times I feel confident that I’ll still be able to do all this great stuff when I reach my destination, and am invariably disappointed; a few hours after landing, I go back to being as cautious and unambitious as usual.

I think this kind of thing is why I’m so interested in psychopharmacology. I don’t need some sort of deep transformative advice to turn my life around. I don’t need to reconcile with my true self. There are predictable times when I’m already exactly the person I want to be. If I could be the person I am at airports 100% of the time, I could change the world. I know being that kind of person is possible, because it happens. But I can’t control it. And I always think that surely there must be some minor tweak that I can do to replicate it. There’s nothing magical about airports, it just has to be unlocking some possible brainspace that’s already there. But I just. can’t. find. the. key.

I’d really like structural critiques to move away from using words like “scum” in general. Individualist moralizing doesn’t belong in discussion of systemic forces; in fact, the two are directly at odds. And it’s a mindfuck of a double-bind for people who are prone to taking ideas seriously: “this issue is very large and touches many aspects of society, and you personally are directly responsible for it.” Structural problems will not be solved by obsessively purifying your own heart. 

One of the Jacobin writers apparently found some 1856 articles about wealth inequality by Frederick Douglass that have never been republished before. They’re really incredible, and it’s fascinating to realize that Douglass appears to share the liberal socialist views of abolitionist Wendell Phillips, whom Douglass was friends with. According to the second article, he was a proto-Georgist too.

“The Accumulation of Wealth,” Frederick Douglass’s Paper, November 28, 1856:

…it is not wealth of itself that produces the dreaded effects, but its accumulation in the hands of a few — creating an aristocracy of wealth, ready to be the tool of an aggressive tyranny, or to become aggressive upon its own account. With an increase of wealth comes an increase of selfishness, devotion to private affairs, and a contempt of public — unless politics can be made to minister to the all absorbing selfishness of the individual…

We are ready to grant that the condition of man, cast as he is into the world naked, and surrounded by elements unfriendly to his continued existence, renders a degree of acquisitiveness necessary for the security of life; but is it just to plead this moderate degree of accumulation, indicated by nature, in justification of the unlimited hoarding of wealth, and monopolies of land, which has converted the entire civilized world into an abode of millionaires and beggars; which renders the enslavement of the peoples of the world possible, and shrouds the future of liberty with gloom?…

Wealth has ever been the tool of the tyrant, the readiest means by which liberty is overthrown. A nation starting with free institutions and customs, begins to increase in wealth, and that wealth to accumulate in the hands of a few, and here is the lever by which, eventually and certainly, the liberties gained in a simpler age will be overthrown.

Wealth is averse to agitation; it abhors revolutions; it calls for peace, at whatever sacrifice. A tyranny of an individual or a class may be winding its subtle meshes around the wealthy, depriving them of the right of unrestrained locomotion, the right of speech, the right of private judgment; but if it leaves them the privilege of grasping and accumulating gold, they are content — nay, will aid the tyranny to subject them who value their liberties enough to struggle for them; for the agitation might endanger their gains…

Louis Napoleon holds his seat today, and other tyrants with him, because they have enlisted the sympathies of capital, by professions of law and order; encouraging and increasing the facilities for growing rich. Say to one of these blinded instruments of tyranny, that personal liberty, the freedom of speech, of thought, of the press, is overthrown; and they will answer you, that commerce flourishes, manufactures increase, public securities are at par. The golden calf set up, they fall down and worship, and shut their eyes to the foul wrongs perpetrated every day on human rights.

Poverty, the natural consequence of wealth unduly accumulated, plays its part in the drama of national degradation. Wherever the palaces tower highest, and enclose within their walls the greatest accumulations of luxury and wealth, there does the peasant grovel lowest in ignorance and misery; there is tyranny most secure and freedom most hopeless…

From whence, in our own country, comes the danger to liberty? Who are the ready tools and apologists of slavery…? The plain answer is, the wealth and the poverty of the nation… We have the controllers of our commercial centres, blinding or buying the poverty-stricken, ignorant masses that fester in their alleys, to the unblushing support of the policy of slaveholding tyranny…

If such a statesman shall devise measures, which, while they will not hamper private enterprise, shall yet prevent the undue accumulation of wealth in the hands of individuals or associations, he will have merited and secured a fame more lasting than has yet fallen to the lot of man. He will have founded a nation which, though subject to human vicissitudes, will yet possess elements of prosperity and permanence, such as no nation has yet enjoyed.

I don’t know why I love this so much :/

BAP BOP BAP BOP BAP BAP BOP BAP

Mathematician. Leader. Heroine. Remembering Hidden Figure Katherine Johnson

Tonight, count the stars and remember a trailblazer. 

We’re saddened by the passing of celebrated #HiddenFigures mathematician Katherine Johnson. She passed away at 101 years old. 

An America hero, Johnson’s legacy of excellence broke down racial and social barriers while helping get our space agency off the ground.

Once a “human computer”, she famously calculated the flight trajectory for Alan Shepard, the first American in space.

And when we began to use electronic computers for calculations, astronaut John Glenn said that he’d trust the computers only after Johnson personally checked the math.

As a girl, Katherine Johnson counted everything. As a mathematician, her calculations proved critical to our early successes in space travel.

With slide rules and pencils, Katherine Johnson’s brilliant mind helped launch our nation into space. No longer a Hidden Figure, her bravery and commitment to excellence leaves an eternal legacy for us all.

“We will always have STEM with us. Some things will drop out of the public eye and will go away, but there will always be science, engineering and technology. And there will always, always be mathematics.” - Katherine Johnson 1918 -2020 

May she rest in peace, and may her powerful legacy inspire generations to come! What does Katherine Johnson’s legacy mean to you? Share in the comments. 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com 

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Cinematography by Douglas Slocombe

The problem with Extremely Online Leftists is not the Left part and you will not save yourself by becoming an Extremely Online Trad

Living inside your head and constantly arguing about controversial topics online is terrible for you. Some people realize t hey are miserable and think “this is What’s Wrong With The [My Current Worldview]” and adopt a whole new worldview. And that won’t fix it. Extremely Online Communists, Extremely Online TradCaths, Extremely Online Centrists, Extremely Online Intersectional Feminists, Extremely Online Conservatives, Extremely Online Liberals, Extremely Online Anarchists, Extremely Online Libertarians, Extremely Online [Any Religious, Political or Philosophical Belief] are just going to be miserable. Some of these ideologies are worse than others in terms of the actual content of the belief system, but even if your core beliefs are compassionate and make sense, if you put them into “““practice”““ by INTERNET YELLING you are on a path of self-destruction.

I recommend filling your time with other things. Some of the best include true love (which does not necessarily have to be romantic), regular exercise (health permitting), helping others and appreciating your local birds.

(In the spirit of trying to only be Moderately Online, I will not respond publicly to any reblogs of this post, unless they are from @nostalgebraist-autoresponder. But it’s fine to reblog and to add your opinion, if you want.)

Yes, SO MANY contexts, possibly all of them

“This thing can be hard for some people and I get that, but unfortunately it’s still necessary, so here’s a few tips you can try that might help you deal with it” - You, dear friend, are a good egg and I’m listening intently.

“Urgh, it’s not that hard. You’re just weak and whiney. Just do the thing.” - OP, you’re being an asshole and I’m already three posts down my dash after having made very sure my eyes never alight on your bullshit again, and that’s true even if I personally find the thing simple.

(It’s probably rather obvious what this is about right now, but it’s actually a general point that comes up in multiple contexts. If someone says something is hard for them THAT’S PROBABLY BECAUSE IT’S FUCKING HARD FOR THEM! Maybe drop the “This is ideologically inconvenient for me, so it can’t be true” for two goddamn seconds and acknowledge that you have knowledge of only your own physical and mental sensations and can’t actually derive a full picture of other people’s minds by projecting those sensations onto everybody else. “It’s easy for me” =/= “It’s easy”)