Pros And Cons Of Having Long Hair

This is by no means an original take, and I probably did not spend as much time as I should have editing the writing into being a coherent take, but:

In an awful lot of movies, Steve Rogers would have been right.

(Or, well, treated-as-right by the narrative, at least; in some of those movies many, many people would have died for his idealism, but this wouldn’t have been treated as wrong.)

When faced with this sort of explicit trolley problem, there are two main messages in pop culture: either you should never pull the level (you might kill a named character) or you should find a way to save everyone. For instance, take The Last Jedi: the narrative treats it as correct that Rose stopped Finn from sacrificing his life, not because his plan wouldn’t have worked, but more-or-less because we don’t trade lives. (Other examples: every fucking YA novel ever. ‘You can choose between your significant other... or saving the world.’ ‘Bye, world.’)

(She is absolutely trading lives, just not in the direction that, you know, saves people.)

(This is not to say that characters never trade off lives! The really obvious example here is that most movies are totally fine with killing the villain to protect innocents, although I’m pretty sure the message is generally closer to “the lives of villains don’t matter” than “pull the lever.” Characters will also sometimes do things like choose which of multiple locations to go to, which is generally understood in their narratives to be trading off lives at least a little. But when there’s this sort of explicit setup, the correct answer as portrayed in the narrative is almost never “pull the lever.”)

Now, I actually can think of counterexamples -- Wrath of Khan is very clear that you should pull the lever, for instance, and since I brought up The Last Jedi earlier I might as well mention Holdo’s choice at the end. But in said counterexamples, the person making the choice is almost always choosing to kill themself, not another person, and they usually would have died anyway.

But when characters are faced with the explicit choice of killing someone, maybe multiple someones, or letting far more people die, the treated-as-correct choice is almost never to kill them. 

And I’m glad that we have a movie where that’s not the case.

The case is called West Virginia State Board of Education vs. Barnette, if you’re interested.

Reblog if you were the kid in class who didn’t stand for The Pledge of Allegiance.

Well, actually, according to a 2015 survey by the Pew Research center, in America, 45% of Muslims say that “homosexuality should be accepted by society,” about the same as Protestants (48%) and more than specifically Evangelical Protestants (36%), Mormons (36%), and Jehovah’s Witnesses (16%).

Additionally, looking specifically at support for same-sex marriage being legalized, 42% of Muslims support this, roughly the same amount as Christians overall (44%) and more than Protestants (39%, with specifically Evangelical Protestants having a support rate of 28%), Mormons (26%), and Jehovah’s Witnesses (14%).

Now, obviously there were other religious groups in the survey, and some of them were more accepting of the LGBT+ community than Muslims, on average. But given the number of groups than which Muslims were more accepting, singling out Muslims specifically is ... factually dubious at best.

Source: http://www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/chapter-4-social-and-political-attitudes/

@johnhocksbur

😁 🐸 lol

hey there LGBTQ kids who are also Christian/Jewish! If you feel like you’re disobeying God, questioning your faith, or feel wrong and dirty for loving who you love, there’s this fantastic site I found today called hoperemains that accurately and thoroughly combs through scripture and its (many) mistranslations, validates your orientation, and basically let’s you know that you’re not pissing off God. It’s insanely thorough and after reading through every page on the entire site it’s super helpful. Go check it out!

Being neurodivergent and LGBT is fantastic and valid and wonderful

Why is this so accurate?

HUMANISTS:

Expectation- Grow! Strive! Excel!

Reality- Government of, by, and for the most insufferable shitheads you knew in high school

BRILLISTS:

Expectation- Unlock the mysteries of the human psyche!

Reality- Your president is a smug sack of shit who’s also computer-racist

EUROPEANS:

Expectation- Unbreakable bonds of cultural tradition

Reality- “You seized my borderlands, you executed my hero, you conquered me a thousand years ago, and I remember.”

COUSINS:

Expectation- Altruism, community, common good

Reality- Some rando’s crashing on your couch six out of seven nights and it’d be too awkward to say anything at this point

UTOPIANS:

Expectation- Join our constellations and build the future! Also, Fursona-Pokémon are real and you can have one!

Reality- I Fucking Love Science + ENDLESS SCRUPULOSITY HELL

MASONS:

Expectation- Power. Order. Eternal tradition.

Reality- Facebook feed is endless unironic “when did THIS [modern architecture] become hotter than THIS [Byzantine spires]”

MITSUBISHI:

Expectation- Noble stewards of our terrestrial inheritance

Reality- Everyone’s least-favorite rent-seeker, and you don’t even have close to enough property to have a say in anything

WHITELAWS:

Expectation: Morally upright, clean living, stable communities

Reality: Mormonism but without the pretense of spiritual development

GRAYLAWS:

Expectation- Join the one group that isn’t directly run by lunatics

Reality- Somehow even more milquetoast than just becoming a Cousin because your ba'pas are

BLACKLAWS:

Expectation- Proud, honorable libertines, shining example of voluntary self-governance

Reality- The worst possible overlap in the Venn diagram of ancaps and LARPers

This is fascinating. I kind of wonder why these don’t tend to get as much coverage as murders by men. My first instinct is gender stereotyping, but I’m not sure if the answer is that simple.

I will note that most of these are not related to rejecting romantic advances, which was the point made by the original poster; nevertheless, that doesn’t mean they aren’t a problem.

shocking

Previously, I’d only seen the first two panels and assumed it was the complete comic.

This version is much better.

No Missing Piece: Why Autism Speaks is Dangerous

Autism Speaks, frankly, has the most ironic name of any nonprofit I’ve ever heard of, because they do everything EXCEPT …

Hey, I just published a new essay on Medium about Autism Speaks and why it’s so dangerous. Go give it a read!