Thirteenth Floor?

Supreme Court Justices have hinted in arguments that they might want to revisit Obergefell. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to guess which ones.

I went to a Humans vs. Zombies Nerf war at a university campus a few weeks ago. A couple hundred people, real strong mix of men, women, and others. A healthy mingling of people who were clearly gun hobby adjacent and a lot of openly queer folk, which I think is really quite encouraging to see. Everyone had a good time, no issues the whole day. Good vibes all around.

At the end of the event, the student organizers tearfully announced that the school administration had decided to ban all blaster events on campus going forward. Fuck us all for trying to have a healthy good time, right?

It seems to me like there’s a lot of talk in the vein of “AI will never be able to meaningfully replace humans at [Task X],” and not enough talk about what we should do to prepare for the possibility of AI replacing humans at those tasks.

Like, right now, AI can create shitty art and write shitty code, but are we prepared for what happens if and when it can do those things well? We’ve got to acknowledge that human lives have inherent value, and not just because they can do things that machines can’t.

Three German engineers at the very peak of giddy anticipation about to introduce their crowning achievement to a cheering crowd:

The idea did occur that I’d better be damn sure that I like whatever honey I’ll be eating for the rest of my life.

The use of the word “parasite” is not a coincidence.

“[The Jew] is and remains the eternal parasite, a parasite that spreads more and more like a harmful bacillus, as well as inviting only a favourable culture medium. The effect of its existence, however, is similar to that of parasites: where it occurs, the host people die after a shorter or longer time.”

— Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

They already shat on every good thing that a previous Republican president ever did, so now it’s time to go after Teddy Roosevelt and the national park system!

I only just learned about it today, myself. I work that day, but I might be able to shift things around.

I really wish that these protests were more widely shared in advance. I want to be involved, but only getting a couple of days advance warning makes it really hard. I know that sometimes you have to act fast, but if you want your movement to succeed then you’ve got to try to consider the real lives of all of the people who want to help, but are also really limited in their time. Plan protests on weekends, and if you’ve got to protest on a weekday, then plan it way ahead of time and give everyone a chance to plan to be there. I’m sure it looks better to have one big protest with 10X people there than ten protests with 1X people attending.

Honestly, watching and thinking about the Pixar movie Inside Out helped me understand my anger a lot better. In the movie, Anger is kind of a joke character. But there’s a line when he’s introduced where Joy says “Anger wants things to be fair.”

I think a lot about how when I’m angry, most of the time there’s some imbalance that I want balanced, and I’m looking to inflict pain, either physical or emotional, in order to balance it out. The vast majority of times, that’s not actually a winning strategy, either in terms of long or short term goals.

It doesn’t always work, but trying to think in terms of what I actually want, why I want it, and what impulses and aims are leading to my feelings, has been a lot of help to not feeling so much like I’m being helplessly driven by my anger.

I personally know a person with a child who was born with profound physical and mental disabilities. She’s a dear sweet caring person, and she shared an emotionally devastating story about how she had her first “conversation” with her daughter when said daughter was in her early twenties, which took the form of the daughter being able to indicate, through extraordinary effort, that she preferred to be read one story instead of another.

For her, this was a deeply rewarding moment, the ability to have any kind of deliberate interaction with her daughter, after nearly two decades of struggle and effort. She clearly loves her daughter. I would never try to take anything away from her in that regard.

However. When my wife got pregnant we had very serious conversations about the potential for birth defects and how we were prepared for her to have an abortion if serious defects were found. We talked about the quality of life of a human being we were bringing into existence, and how no one should ever have to feel trapped by their own body, and what our experience of being parents was going to be like.

Our daughter was born without any issues at all. In fact she’s bright and friendly and less destructive than we might have expected… and still being a parent is easily the most intense and difficult project of my entire life, mentally, physically, and emotionally. Nobody should ever have any reservations about being a parent for any reason at all, and if there are factors that you can control to make that decision easier one way or the other, then you should absolutely take control of them.

All of which is to say, no there is absolutely no moral issue with choosing not to deliberately create a person with genetic birth defects. The choice to become a parent is the most important and consequential choice anyone can make. Make it in exactly the way that you would want to make it, and in no other way whatsoever.

[Monkey’s paw curls a finger]

“Your wish is… granted…”

No doing your business in the Continental, though.

It’s a long listen, but I’m a fan of the extended Tainted Love / Where Did Our Love Go from Soft Cell

Tainted Love / Where Did Our Love Go

It’s a good change!

Not a lamp, but I developed cold urticaria in my 30s; my skin gets rashy if it’s exposed to cold air. I get really bad hives if I’m in cold water, and I need to wear full ankle-to-wrist pajamas or else I get itchy while I’m trying to sleep, just from the cold of the sheets. I’m seriously considering adding an electric heating pad to my bedtime routine.

The American electorate:

Turnout was only 54.2% nationally; not sure if that number is significantly higher or lower for Florida in particular.

…conversely…

There’s no need! Their opinions matter even less than third party voters!