similar vibe to this absolutely unhinged car

they're adding new pvp features to pinterest

i led an all-ages hike today for our local Pride organization (which was great!) & there was a 6-year-old on the hike who was super engaged in all my little Naturalist spiels until the very end nearly two hours into the hike as we approached the end of the trail & he became tired and a little over it. I fell to the back to make sure we had everyone & he was at the end of the line with his mom and he stopped suddenly in the middle of the trail and put out his little arm so I bumped into it and I stopped and he said “you can’t come with us.” I said, “you’re leaving me here?!” He said, “you’re for the forest.” I said, “what have I done to you today to deserve this abandonment,” and he said, “it’s not like that.” I said, “oh, like I shouldn’t take it personally?” And he said, verbatim, “yeah, like…don’t make it a thing.”

I’m only able to tell you all this because his mom, in her infinite mercy, told him to keep walking and let me go. I’d still be in that forest.

I don’t think you’re ready to have an adult conversation about politics until you’re able to admit that there are things you love and enjoy that would not and should not exist in a just world. $8 billion dollar budget movies every other month don’t exist in a just world. New 900 GB AAA video games every year don’t exist in a just world. Next day delivery doesn’t exist in a just world. 80 different soda brands don’t exist in a just world. 

All of those things come from exploitation on some level, and if you wouldn’t trade those for a world where everyone can eat and have a home no matter who they are or what they do, I don’t know what to tell you. 

Man, this post makes me feel conflicted, because on the one hand, of the things listed, next-day delivery is the only one that DOES actually exist in the world today. The others are exaggerations, and while I understand the point being made, they do detract from it.

I understand—and agree with—that sentiment of, “I want slower deliveries by drivers who are paid better,” as one recent tumblr post put it. I absolutely agree with the idea that we need to produce and consume less as a culture, and that an actual substantive conversation about politics should involve willingness to relinquish the many modern luxuries that are built on exploitation.

I don’t think these are good examples of those luxuries, though.

Large budget movies are possible because consumers (and investors) are willing to pay for them. A large budget is actually a necessary component in making sure workers are being adequately compensated; the fact that they currently are often exploited by studios is a result of deliberate misallocation of resources, not anything intrinsic to the size of the production. Same thing goes with high-quality video games. As for releasing a new film/game every month/year, that’s only unsustainable because there’s only a handful of monopolistic studios doing it. In a well-regulated industry that encourages growth and competition, we could see tens, if not hundreds of studios producing big-budget films and games. And, with a well-compensated and socially-supported citizenry, consumers would have enough disposable income to support it.

Similarly, the problem with soda isn’t that we have 80 brands; it’s that we have two. And those two brands each own 800 different labels. In a healthy economy, these monopolies would be dissolved, and we could support well over 80 moderately-sized independent beverage companies producing their own sodas.

Same-day delivery, again, could be easily supported with proper allocation of resources. Currently, we have huge centralized distributors like Amazon exploiting gig-workers with slave-wages to ferry cheap mass-produced crap to people, and that’s what makes it bad, not the speed at which they do it. If instead, we had something like a super-robust USPS, with well-compensated deliverypeople working reasonable hours within a decentralized network of independent-but-cooperative suppliers, there would be absolutely no reason why you couldn’t get something delivered to you from the distro ten miles down the road within a day.

When we critique capitalism, and they respond, “Yeah, well capitalism made the cell phone you’re using!” our response shouldn’t be, “Oh shit u right,” it should be, “No, capitalism made the cell phone I’m using break after a year so I’ll buy a new one, and they use slave labor to do it while they pocket the rest.”

There are luxuries, and there are artificially-valued, mass-produced, built-to-break trash that are marketed as luxuries. But we don’t solve the problems of fast-fashion by saying, “Welp I guess I shouldn’t wear clothes.”

yeah that’s a decent rebuttal imma reblog now

people don’t realize how much stuff you used to be able to get locally

nowadays I might pay for rush shipping on sewing supplies if I need them for a project deadline. 100 years ago, I could just go to a store and buy silk thread, a zillion different types of braid in different fibers, cut glass or steel buttons, a tailor’s ham for ironing, a needle board for ironing velvet, etc. there were entire stores just for ribbons, for faux foliage, for specialty sewing machine attachments, for individual varieties of fabric. and most of it was locally produced

especially since I live in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. if you told someone in 1924 that I couldn’t find any newly-made glass buttons for sale in a city the size of BOSTON, they’d look at you like you were insane. doubly so if you told them that buttons, period, could only be purchased at like three stores in the area, from maybe two different brands

today I go to the craft store and it’s. one brand of polyester thread. maybe seven colors of cotton thread, all dull or dark. one size and brand of snaps. one size and brand and type of ironing board. plastic buttons (MAYBE a few cards of wood or metal). flat polyester ribbon trim in a few sizes and colors. and that’s pretty much it

you didn’t NEED next-day shipping as much even as recently as 60-70 years ago, because more things were manufactured and sold closer to you

Fun fact: in the 80′s the Dutch Unemployed Union held ‘fridge raids’ to protest against poverty. 

They’d find out when a politician of big boss who upheld poverty and starvation wages was speaking at some public even, then they’d carefully break into his house with a LOT of people and they would eat EVERY piece of food in his house and leave the empty dished behind without taking anything else. 

Direct action at its finest.

I theoretically disapprove, but at least it’s ballsy as fuck.

I no longer disapprove.

Growth

One time my brother’s construction crew didn’t get paid on time. So he went to the boss’ house at dinnertime and when the boss opened the door my brother walked right in, asking “what’s for dinner?” And while the boss sputtered and protested, my brother started going through his fridge, calmly explaining that since he didn’t get paid, he didn’t have money for groceries, and his kid was sitting hungry at home because they didn’t have dinner. The boss’ family looked on in horror as my brother commented on how much nice food the boss had in his fridge. Until the boss finally loaded my brother up with a bunch of stuff out of the freezer and managed to get him to leave. Everyone got paid the next day and, as far as I know, they got paid on time as long as my brother worked there. Who knew that being supremely annoying could be such a gift?!

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got my first less than helpful Google AI search result

Sometimes I see some variety of North American Little Guy (opossum, raccoon, etc. ) and I’m like “okay”

BUT THEN I start thinking about how excited somebody from not-North-America would be to see this Guy. Like, would an Australian be excited to see the only marsupial not from their country? Are there raccoons in zoos on the other side of the world that are regarded as unique and exotic creatures? Idk but it’s made me more excited to see Guys in my area.

it's me, i'm the person described in the tumbl

I went to a zoo in England this past summer, and there were crowds around the skunks, raccoons, and coyotes.

So, as an Australian, going to the zoo in China with a USAmerican and a Jamacian was an experience.

The first thing you should know about this experiences is I'm a fairly bush-raised child. Not entirely, but the vast majority of my school holidays were spent camping or on a property or otherwise out in the bush. (Not the Outback, although sometimes, but definitely the Bush. The great south-west forests, to be specific.)

I have seen more than my fair share of actually wild Australian wildlife. I am severely immune to snakes, spiders, frogs, kangaroos and wild foxes, rabbits and pigs (those shouldn't be in Australia, but they are. Also, if you ever see evidence of pigs in the bush, you leave immediately.)

So here we encounter jarring moment of dissonance the first.

We were walking past the kangaroo paddock and I'll admit I didn't even give it a second glance - it was a case of "Oh, kangaroos, how normal," And moving on. Didn't even register that they would be something to get excited about. It was literally like seeing a bird or the neighbour's cat.

Anyway, after awhile I noticed that I was no longer with my fellows because they were amazed by the kangaroos. They were staring, they were laughing, they were paying money to feed the fucking kangaroos like they were some sort of weird, special, exotic animal.

"Oh for fuck's sake, guys, they're just kangaroos!"

And then I realised I was with non-Australians and felt properly shamed.

We spent some (far too long of a) time with the kangaroos and moved on.

Anyway, as we were leaving we were walking through the American animals section and I've stopped dead in my tracks and squealed with excitement and raced over to an enclosure to coo and generally be a weird, animal-obsessed little moron. I'd never seen this animal in real life before but it was adorable and lovely and the cutest thing ever. And my Americas friends were looking at me like I'd grown another head because the animal that I was enamoured with and had never seen in person before, the animal that I was most excited about out of any that was there (including the baby tiger that I actually got to hold, guys)

The animal was a raccoon.

Your trash creature is someone else’s treasured encounter

When my father visited a Zoo in Germany, he was amazed to find people eagerly watching what appeared to be a large patch of dirt with holes in it. It took him a minute to realize that the exhibit was for prairie dogs and everyone was waiting to hopefully see one pop it's head out. Dad, who went to school in Eastern Oregon and regularly harassed the local prairie dog population there, had long known how to call them. So to amuse himself, he gave the high whistle he used to use at school and, sure enough, about 15 little heads popped up to see what was happening. What was happening was the local German patrons all losing their god damn minds

College in 2000ish and we had an Aussie in the dorm.

Came inside, entranced, and asked us to identify a critter. Said it was the CUTEST thing ever and was amazed by how tame it seemed.

It was a squirrel. They'd never seen a squirrel before.

We are superior. Perhaps genetically.

my fursona in onesies ( gengar and mewtew themed )

the most terrifying part of wreck-it ralph was definitely the arcade owner hooking up every single machine to the same power strip

beanie baby dragon is crossing your dash

KILLING STANCE: TEN SOUL RENDING CLAWS

happy rika pokemas day to all who celebrate