"When a person tells you you hurt them, you don’t get to decide you didn’t."

Louis C.K. (via sexual-feelings)

It’s so nice that there’s no way anybody could possibly abuse this.

(via dataandphilosophy)

I think it’s important to note that “You hurt me” can have two very different unstated implications.

The first is, “You hurt me, and so I’m going change my behavior in the future to protect myself from further harm.” For example, “I feel hurt that you’re often unavailable when I need support, and so in the future I’m going to seek out my other friends for emotional support instead.” 

The second is, “You hurt me, and so you’re obligated to change your behavior in the future so I don’t get hurt.” For example, “I feel hurt that you’re often unavailable when I need support, and so in the future you have to always drop everything to support me when I need it.”

In the first example, denying that you hurt the other person can be a way of telling them, “You’re not allowed to change your behavior to protect yourself.” This is harmful and controlling.

In the second example, denying that you hurt the other person can be a way of saying, “I don’t think it’s reasonable for you make these demands of me.” This can be useful and important, because their demands may actually be controlling and unjustified.

I guess the best way to approach this would not be to argue that you haven’t hurt someone, but instead argue directly about the implication. “Okay, I hurt you, and I’m sorry about that. What do you think should happen in the future to prevent that?” And then you can discuss whether what behavior changes (if any) would make both of you comfortable, and, based on that, decide how to proceed.

(Source: classically-incomplete, via dataandphilosophy)

Anonymous asked: Is it offensive for white women to have a fetish for asian men, or is it only bad for white men to want asian women?

ozymandias271:

It is perfectly fine for people of all genders to have preferences for traits that correlate with particular races– if you like straight black hair or epicanthic folds, that’s fine. 

It’s bad if you assume that Asian women are submissive or Asian men are feminine and then are attracted to them on that basis, but that’s bad even if you aren’t attracted to them– the bad part is believing racial stereotypes. You should also avoid saying things like “I love Asian women!”, because that signals that you’re the sort of person who’s attracted to racial stereotypes of Asian women, rather than the sort of person who likes straight black hair. And of course you shouldn’t mistreat people you’re sexually attracted to, regardless of race.

People are so defensive

#seriously what even is the concept of ‘defensiveness’ #does it have any legitimate uses? (tags from @robertksmiles)

(edit: I first wrote this post on my phone, and it had lots of typos. I’ve attempted to correct them on my computer.)

I’ve used “defensiveness” to mean “acting like you’re being attacked when you actually aren’t”. Obviously this concept can be misused pretty badly, as you pointed out - someone can attack you while claiming that they’re not doing so, and then accuse you of “being defensive” when you try to protect yourself.

I mainly use the word “defensive” to describe a way I feel sometimes when I’m very stressed. When I’m feeling defensive, any request that I act a certain way feels to me like a scary demand or obligation. A friend may politely ask me to stop doing X, and internally I feel very threatened by their request, and so I respond by saying “but I do X because I feel Y and I can’t help that!” Or “My doing X is completely justified because of Z!”

This is what I’d describe as unhealthy defensiveness: it discourages others from telling me their preferences, because I respond to every expressed preference as though it were an attack.

That said, if someone else is acting defensive, it’s worth considering why they’re acting that way, and trying to see if you can change your words/behavior to make them feel less threatened. (Mainly what helps me get over my defensiveness is remembering that I’m allowed to say “no” to requests. If I can say “no”, then the request is not a demand, and I can consider it and respond appropriately without feeling attacked.)

(Source: robertskmiles)

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nihilsupernum:

ladystoneshield:

escapedosmil:

nizzlekicks:

When you broke but you woke

Wait… Guys what?

Is this what you guys think it means when GMO comes up in conversation?

Do you know what else is a GMO?

Dogs. Literally ALL dogs have had their genetics modified to make them more docile, loyal, trusting, energetic, obedient ect.

Ears of corn used to be the size of your thumb. Through selective ‘breeding’ we chose the strains of corn that were the biggest, fastest growing, most resilient ect. Ect.

THAT is a GMO. I don’t know where the idea that genetic modification meant they’re injecting your food stuffs with chemicals to change its DNA. That’s not how it works.

However, they ARE spraying your veggies with pesticides and that is something you should be worried about.

Companies like Monsanto are evil. But not because they are breeding crops to feed more people. But because they’re monopolizing the farming market, sueing farmers who share a geographic area and have some of the same strains of crops in their fields because of unavoidable cross pollination and lying about their business practices.

bolded.

monsanto, specifically, is not particularly evil: http://www.quora.com/Is-Monsanto-evil/answers/9740807

there actually is a difference between traditional breeding and modern genetic modification techniques, however good a talking point “everything is gmo” is

gm crops and crops sprayed with pesticides are cheaper than organic (iirc, gm crops can’t be labeled organic, but im not very sure about this) crops because gm crops have higher output (more kgs of fruit/vegetable per m^2 of land) and pesticides prevent crops from being damaged by parasites etc

now, i have a friend who won’t eat anything invented less than a hundred years ago because the long-term effects of eating newer things haven’t been tested. organic food probably is more healthy and it’s probably good to eat it if you can afford it and it sucks that people can’t afford it. but there’s a reason it’s expensive, it’s more expensive to produce. 

im not sure who “they” are in this accusation, but almost nobody is evil. almost nobody hates poor people. bad things are usually not caused by shadowy groups of powerful people hating you, the baseline state of the world is where everyone is dead (or hunter-gatherer societies, or whatever you prefer) and every deviation from this is an accomplishment. of course people are bad at coordinating and aren’t acting optionally to fix the world, but treating the base state of the world as everything being good results in expecting bad things to be caused by somebody. bad things have existed from the beginning of time and counteracting them is new. (this paragraph shouldn’t be interpreted literally.)

(for a certain definition of hating poor people, something like whole foods probably does “hate poor people” in that part of what it sells is status/differentiation from the people that whole foods customers want to signal that they’re not, and also it sells good food, but that’s a different thing and whole foods customers will of course claim to love poor people since they want to differentiate themselves from evil right-wingers or whatever, but i dont know how much effect it has. things are complicated.)

re: claims of GM food being less healthy –

In 2010, the EU released a meta-study of 10 years’ worth of EU-funded GMO research. Its conclusion was: 

There is, as of today, no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms.

(Source: hotdamn5sos)

osberend:

queenshulamit:

I don’t actually care if this is a ““““real disease”““““““““

I care about whether meds will make my life better or worse. If better, take them. If worse, don’t. This seems obvious.

Seconded. Maybe I meet clinical criteria for depression/SAD/something of that nature. Maybe I don’t. Does taking bupropion help me get out bed in the morning? Then I should probably continue taking it, shouldn’t I?

The relevant question is not “does this person have a disease”, the relevant question is “can this person’s quality of life be improved”.

moody-poet:

it’s genuinely really distressing to me that the model of parent-child relationships doesn’t seem to match up with the agreed-upon model for healthy relationships in general.

like

any healthy relationship should be based on mutual consent and a degree of equality. honesty and trust are key. abuse should never be present, and if it is, the abused party should be able to leave the relationship.

but so often, parent-child relationships aren’t like this at all. no consent is involved, not ever on the part of the child and sometimes not even on the part of the parent. children who run away from home are, more often than not, returned back home by law enforcement to whatever godawful home situation was worse than living on the run/being homeless.

equality is completely lacking in most parent-child relationships, with the parent having almost total autonomy over their child. same goes for honesty and trust: parents rarely trust their children, and can (ab)use their power to keep important information from their children as well. kids, in turn, don’t trust their parents not to abuse their power, and will often lie to their parents in order to avoid punishment.

lastly, child abuse is still largely normalized in many western societies. parents on facebook trade tips on how to punish and humiliate their children as they might trade cooking tips. spanking is still legal (and often encouraged) for parents in America across the board, and for teachers/school officials it’s legal in 19 states. there are apps and devices used to monitor and control children (the mosquito, tattletype) which would be considered infringement of basic rights were they used on any other group of people.

basically, i’m just becoming more and more opposed to the way parent-child relationships currently work, because the potential for abuse is so frighteningly huge

(via cyborgbutterflies)

Anonymous asked: If I'm disgusted by the thought of having gay sex, is that a sign that I have attraction to men that's hidden under my homophobia? I approve of having gay sex but don't like it or want it.

ozymandias271:

Lots of people are disgusted by sex acts they’re not interested in engaging in. (Plenty of gay people are disgusted by the idea of having heterosexual sex.) And you grew up in a homophobic culture which legitimated that sense of disgust and probably made it worse. Unless you’re disgusted by gay sex but also attracted by it, you’re probably just heterosexual. 

(And for the record: being disgusted by gay sex is homophobic, but as long as you don’t express your disgust to actual gay people or allow it to influence how you treat gay people, it is a relatively minor personality flaw and you probably shouldn’t worry about it.) 

If you don’t let it influence how you treat gay people, is it a personality flaw at all? If you don’t endorse your disgust-feelings, and don’t think they have moral relevance (anon says they “approve of having gay sex”, which presumably means they think people who enjoy gay sex should have it), then is it still a flaw?

If an asexual is disgusted by the thought of anyone having sex, but rationally understands that sexual people want sex and therefore should have it, is that a flaw? 

(I’m not actually sure. On the one hand, feeling disgusted by something you think is morally good might cause cognitive dissonance, so it might be personally healthier to only feel disgusted by things you think are morally wrong. On the other hand, maybe you can think of your disgust as a personal aesthetic preference, so you wouldn’t feel any cognitive dissonance in saying “I feel disgusted by gay sex but I approve of people having it”, any more than you would feel saying “I feel disgusted by broccoli but I approve of other people eating it.”)

(I obviously agree that telling people you feel disgusted by the type of sex they’re having is rude and unkind. Also, if you openly express feeling disgusted by gay sex, many gay people will reasonably be worried that you are prejudiced against them.)

3dspacejesus asked: (Responsible-Reanimation's main account) your open-source culture post really struck a chord with the kind of rhetoric that inspires me and the kind of subject matter I love. Brilliantly done!

thank you. :) 

i am actually pretty worried/conflicted about the fact that i posted it – i normally don’t post controversial things to my blog without lots of careful explanation, to try and ensure that people who completely disagree with me will at least see where i’m coming from. this was one of the first times i’ve written a controversial post in the sort of rhetoric that internally matches my thoughts and feelings on the topic.

so it’s really nice to for me to hear that you enjoyed it. :) it’s already been reblogged by someone who’s very upset at me for writing it, and i may delete it if people start yelling at me too much (?), so i’m happy it’s at least had some positive effects on others as well.

i really want open-source culture.

social rules and norms and technology are tools! if they don’t suit your needs, bend them and re-shape them and transform them until they do! create new rules! discard old ones! branch and fork and endlessly customize–

but then don’t patent your modified and repurposed tools. share them with others, such that anyone else who may find them useful can use them, or even transform and repurpose them further.

and never condemn people who prefer a different customization to yours. don’t resent people for taking an idea you created and transforming it further to something that suits them better. likewise, don’t assume an attitude of smug superiority to people who choose to reject your customizations, who prefer to stick to the original.

let there be monogamy and polyamory and traditional marriage and relationship anarchy. let these all exist at once, each for the people who prefer them. they don’t need to destroy each other. they don’t need to demean each other.

the culture wars need not be wars.

"

Science is finding out facts about the world. Engineering, in contrast, is the technique of using science to produce tools we can consistently use in the world. Engineering produces things that have useful effects.

…The distinction is, I think fairly clear when we talk about physics. In particular, we understand the science of physics quite well, at least on every-day scales. And our practice of the engineering of physics is also quite well-developed… But people get much more confused when we move over to, say, psychology, or sociology, or nutrition. Researchers are doing a lot of science on these subjects, and doing good work. So there’s a ton of papers out there saying that eggs are good, or eggs are bad, or eggs are good for you but only until next Monday or whatever.

And people have, often, one of two reactions to this situation. The first is to read one study and say “See, here’s the scientific study. It says eggs are bad for you. Why are you still eating eggs? Are you denying the science?” And the second reaction is to say that obviously the scientists can’t agree, and so we don’t know anything and maybe the whole scientific approach is flawed.

But the real situation is that we’re struggling to develop a science of nutrition. And that shit is hard. We’ve worked hard, and we know some things. But we don’t really have enough information to do engineering, to say “Okay, to optimize cardiovascular health you need to cut your simple carbs by 7%, eat an extra 10g of monounsaturated fats every day, and eat 200g of protein every Wednesday” or whatever. We just don’t know enough.

…A lot of “lifehacks” boil down to “We read a study, and based on this study here are three simple things you can do to X.” A study is science, not engineering. Sometimes helpful, but easy to overinterpret. Don’t take any one study too seriously, and if what you’re doing works, don’t totally overhaul it because you read a study.

"

jadagul on the difference between science and engineering