esmependergast.bsky.social

It's a primal reflex; a wolf will snap and snarl at a lower ranking animal instead of the source of its fear or frustration (dangerous!) or even when it's excited (funsies!). This is how I characterize the folks that get mad at the nearest woman, sometimes even an imaginary woman, or sometimes RBG.

What most people forget about the Buttfumble is that it was not only the primetime Thanksgiving game, it’s that this was the second of three New England TDs scored in 49 seconds of game time. It was preceded by an 83-yard Shane Vereen catch and run and followed by an Edelman KO fumble recovery.

Yesterday I opened the internet and Trump had accused federal Democrats of seditious behavior deserving summary execution

Today I opened the internet to see that he’s a one-man Mamdani fan club

I am not ok

This is horrific. Ironically, I don't think this approach will ultimately serve her preferred people. People are truly the same, good and bad in all creeds and nations.

Sharing the video of this because it’s such a ghoulish thing to say that I’m honestly in disbelief that I even heard her properly

I have this happen after losing a cat. Not my favorite. I wish I could send the visual processing part of my brain a memo.

He's a threat. Confrontation is only one of our natural human responses to threats and it's the most dangerous.

They would have to plan a response and resolve ahead of time to give it. Taking actions like that are not reflexive. The world would be a different place if they were. People don't react in the moment, and then increasingly feel unable to act as the people around them also continue to not react.

I had the good fortune once of serving with a man who heard an insult to a woman colleague from the man in leadership.

He said, in his usual calm voice, “You know how you just said (insult)?”

Took a beat.

“Never say that again.”

And 15 year olds like I was who are more adventurous, are equally still kids, exploring their teen selves with peers doing the same. It is still no excuse for adults that are wanting to control or own or fetishize or oppress us via the vast power imbalance between us.

True enough. People that get off on that kind of thing don't unnecessarily endanger themselves and also get off on power imbalance.

Do you not even have a hobby? Anyone with any specialist knowledge at all knows it doesn't replace people. Every Google search I do in my field generates fantastically wrong AI answers. It's caused me to switch search engines to avoid it. Very telling that they are afraid of letting ppl opt out.

People in power have seized whatever share of the spoils that they can get away with, but it's still true that much fewer people have to do back breaking or dangerous work, or routinely endure famine and disease.

Justin, saying that AI replaces cognition is exactly congruent to saying that Ponzi schemes replace mutual funds. Convincing simulacra that appear to be doing impossible things are not replacing anything except other grifts. As labor saving tech they’re more mechanical turk than spinning jenny.

It's he trying to say there is not a fascism because he doesn't know those things are already happening?

“Requires more firmness than I enjoy” is so sinister, so creepy, so nauseating, so disturbing, I’m having trouble finding words for it but absolute nightmare fuel

Stop using epsteinsballroom.com to look at it!!!

#EpsteinsBallroom
#OpDeathEaters
#MAGAcide
#MeMBu

not found, account has been suspended

patton oswalt has been suspended from bluesky for saying that megyn kelly should be fed to a woodchipper for justifying the sexual abuse of minors

The unspoken assumption behind “raping 15 year olds is different than raping 8 year olds” is that teenage girls are legitimate targets of desire on account of (sometimes) being adult shaped. But if the adult shape was the source of attraction, and not the vulnerability, these men would date women.

A person who derails a discussion about CSA with one of pedantry is not only comfortable with CSA, they are actively interfering with push-back against it. So, yeah.

Whenever the discussion is about CSA and the issue that is important to a person is a semantic concern, that person has revealed themselves as someone who is both comfortable with CSA *and* who wants to derail people that aren't. Red flags are a caution. That warrants something more definitive.

Thank you. They offered to have me tested again in six months. I just got a call today that my lab appointment has been canceled and I need to find another lab because theirs is too understaffed. :(

Mine was 7. 7! And my practitioner was like *shrug*. Arg!

and if you *are* a ghoul, faking decency is the price of admission into polite society. seethe about it on your own time

I would take that personal hit if I could give it all away, specifically in some way that would cut the legs from under the billionaires.

It's probably true that a group defined by promoting a grift is gonna be rough, but biologists absolutely had the usual percent of horrible people. I mean 'social Darwinism' and eugenics are things I consider the offspring of the life sciences.

I saw someone post on here earlier today about why is it that only AI luminaries consistently turn out to be horrible people but it doesn’t happen in fields like biology, and that just isn’t true.

Fascinating thread as always.

Being able to terrorize Congress enough that they won't act against you out if fear of your most criminal and deranged fans is not ruling by charisma. He rules by violence and appealing to the worst of humanity. Campaign ads fear-mongered against trans ppl and dems, not showcasing his "charisma".

It's more that he's a freak of nature. The large part of his humanity that is missing allows him to behave in ways that our norms are not prepared to handle. He peddles license to behave in terrible ways and enough folks are buying to tip elections. He can lie egregiously with total comfort.