Ava Dahl (they/it)

I just added this book to my collection and just reading the introduction to the Watch & Ward Society had me flipping tables.
There really are no new cons; just reinvented ones.

A liberal is someone who opposes every moral panic except the current one

“There’s no greys, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.’ ‘It’s a lot more complicated than that -’ ‘No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.” - Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum

A fundamental (and gallingly simple to answer) question that society continues to grapple with:
Are children people or property?

Terry Pratchett's quote about the definition of 'sin' remains evergreen...

the party that wants to require ID to vote abruptly invalidating a thousand people’s IDs overnight seems like a pretty giant flashing red light

One of the best things you can do to fight fascism is to openly have fun being weird.

if they take the bait, they will get pulled increasingly into rightwing extremism. the amount of overlap between many transphobe orgs & neonazi hate groups is well documented.

If you value “feeling correct” more than you value truth & empathy, you will eventually wind up as a rightwinger.

4/x

JK Rowling attacking women athletes from both Algeria and Taiwan is disgusting, but it unfortunately should not be a surprise given her history of racism.

Transphobia as an ideology is frequently fueled by white supremacy & colonialist notions of European femininity.

This is only going to get worse as the billionaire class continues to consolidate power and strangle every possible cent out of the workers and forcing them to do more with less.
The medical system in particular is going to collapse in a catastrophic way.

FOURTEEN phone calls.
Many abandoned because of a dropped signal or hold times longer than 20 minutes.
For ONE prescription.

The problem, btw? My Dr had a bad fax number the whole time.

Now, why in the FUCK is that my job to determine for my physician, as her patient?

I’m *SO* glad we don’t live in a socialist hellscape where it’s impossible to get the care you need y’all!
I mean imagine if it took literally 14 phone calls in order to get one prescription filled!— OHWAIT no that’s exactly what happened to me under capitalism
🙃🙃🙃

Gosh if ONLY there was a way to name and then ultimately dismantle these systems the seem to oppress people en mass….
Oh well I guess it will just remain this mysterious force we can’t possibly fathom even with decades of study and lived experience 🙃

I have really come to believe that we'd be in a much better place right now if we had put Nixon away in a dingy cell for the rest of his natural life, instead of the slap on the wrist for being naughty that he actually received.

rich powerful white men in the US understandably DO believe that losing your job and having to see people say mean stuff about you on the Internet is the WORST POSSIBLE FATE THAT COULD EVER HAPPEN TO ANYONE because that has historically been the case for THEM.

we must make them fear far worse.

Preserving The Web Is Not The Problem. Losing It Is. Recent reporting by Nieman Lab describes how some major news organizations—including The Guardian, The New York Times, and Reddit—are limiting or blocking access to their content in the Internet Ar…

🧵TL;DR the biggest AI companies and the New York Times are destroying history and accountability at the same time. www.techdirt.com/2026/02/17/p...

Get you some fuckin whimsy, bruh.
Bitches love whimsy.

Okay “kirkolded” is diabolical. I’m adopting this immediately for wider distribution.

it drives you insane how much erosion of freedom is justified by concern for kids when the people who actually hurt them will never face consequences

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If you want to know what's going on in Minnesota, I recommend following & listening to Minnesotans. I recommend reading the articles we share. Believe us when we tell you what's happening.

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ITS FINE TO LAUGH AT SOMEONE WHO THINK'S A MARKOV CHAT BOT IS SUPER INTELLIGENT, ITS OK TO MAKE FUN OF THE TENDENCY TO OFF LOAD ANY CRITICAL THINKING ONTO AN APP THAT IS GENERATING TEXT WITH NO INHERENT MEANING, ITS ACCEPTABLE TO FIND IT HUMOROUS THAT AN ENTIRE SEGMENT OF PEOPLE THINK THAT A SET OF D&D DICE REPLACES A SEARCH ENGINE, ITS ONE OF THE NICEST WAYS TO HANDLE THE SITUATION, THE WORLDS RICHEST PEOPLE DEVISED A WAY TO FORCE EVERY SKILLED WORKER OUT OF EMPLOYMENT AND TURN ALL ART INTO UNIFORM SLOP AND IF WE CAN LAUGH AT THEIR COLLABORATORS AT LEAST WE GET SOMETHING OUT OF THE DEAL - DA TEXT SAYS "ITS OK TO MAKE FUN OF AI USERS, THERE NOT ABLE TO READ WHAT YOU TYPED ANYWAY" - DASHARE.ZONE ADMIN

ITS FINE - dashare.zone ADMIN

a woman in a car with her mouth open Alt: a woman in a car with her mouth open laughing, hand whooshing over her head like the point this article completely missed.

My guy.

I’m putting fucking duct tape over the one that was pre-installed in my house first thing in the morning

The ads fucking suck. They're bleak as hell - AI and crypto shoved in our faces while Dunkin de-ages Jennifer Anniston and Liquod IV asks me about my piss.

This is exactly why we need the humanities and not just STEM

FAMU can't use the word Black on anything posted around campus related to Black History Month, to stay in compliance with Florida state laws against DEI. Black students can't use the word Black at their Historically Black College during Black History Month.

You Know, You Can Just Say "Patriarchy" These analyses of the Epstein case are... missing something.

Lord forgive me, but it's time to go back to the old me: Trying to get dudes on the Internet to say "patriarchy" about the Epstein files:

A 2 panel sketch disgram of a 1 meter tall pod. in the second panel, an oval section pops off and a demonic little face with short tentacles flies out, crudely drawn.

My favorite artifact in the "you don't need AI to do art" discourse is, of course, screenwriter Dan O'Bannon's sketch of the facehugger to explain it to Giger.

"Being anti AI is class privilege! Poor people can't afford to learn how to make art without it!"

Yes. Famously, all artists are extremely wealthy.

ai will just never replace actual artists and anyone who says it will is a HUGE LOSER

it is impossible to convey how spiritually and emotionally devastating it is to know that other people do not consider you to be a real person with an interior (or exterior) life beyond them

it’s really the cherry on the shit sundae that all of these sexist gatekeepers are such tremendous dumbasses. just staggeringly stupid and lazy