Jason Lefkowitz
- the past was just completely fucking awful
A core element of fascist ideology is the idea that there was once a perfect, ideal past, that we through our degeneracy let slip away. The fascist promises to bring us back to it by being a stern ruler who will punish us for our sins. So it's important to help people understand that there was NEVER a perfect, ideal past. There was just people and their various screw-ups. And people now are fundamentally the same as people then. The clothes change, the rituals change, but people are people.
Chris Trottier
- People say, "The Internet is forever." This is not true.
Imagine if YouTube was shut down. It would be a literal tragedy for the human race. Billions of hours worth of creativity would disappear in an instant. "That would never happen!" some believe. But it already has. Remember Google+? All of it's gone forever. Or remember all that media stored on MySpace? It's vanished. We must stop depending on Big Tech to archive our data. Their mandate is to profit off our data, not preserve it.
Emily Guendelsberger
- I was a fast-food worker. Let me tell you about burnout.
If you had to make a rat depressed, how do you think you'd go about it? To test your new antidepressant, you need an efficient method of making a lot of rats exhibit anhedonia - that is, making them lose interest in things they used to enjoy, like sugar. It turns out you don't need to traumatize them. The most reliable protocol is "chronic mild stress." ... remove all predictability and control from the animal's life. Then take notes as they gradually lose interest in being alive.
James Baldwin
- Meeting The Man: James Baldwin in Paris
Love has never been a popular movement... The world is held together, really it is, held together, by the love and the passion of a very few people. Otherwise, of course you can despair. Walk down the street of any city, any afternoon, and look around you. What you've got to remember is what you're looking at is also you. Everyone you're looking at is also you. You could be that person. You could be that monster, you could be that cop. And you have to decide, in yourself, not to be.
A. R. Moxon
- Selfish assholes aren't everyone else's job to fix.
Selfish assholes *love* when the answer is "convince them," for many reasons, but mostly because they know it's ineffective. Selfish assholes *hate* clear boundaries and enforced consequences, because they are effective. And that's why I advocate boundaries and consequences.
talia jane's lawyer
- remember to actually remain silent!
Do NOT let cops into the house. Speak to them through the door or intercom. Make sure to get their name, field office, and phone number. If they have a warrant, ask them to slide it under the door. Then back up from the door and read it out loud, noting what they are allowed to look for, and where. Do *not* speak to police without a lawyer. (You can't talk your way out of an arrest, but you can talk your way into a conviction!) Say: "I am going to remain silent, and I want to speak to a lawyer!"
Julia Ioffe
- Consequences of failing to hold the NKVD to account for their crimes
Look, I'm from the former Soviet Union. One of the reasons Putin, an alumnus of the KGB, the agency that committed some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century, came to power in 2000 and stayed is that people wanted unity rather than accountability. Chew on that.
Arthur Chu
- Improvements
Before you can replace something bad in your life with something good, you almost always have to *start* by replacing it with nothing. And that's a situation people will often go through hell to avoid. It's why most divorces are long overdue by the time they happen.
Frank Wilhoit
- Characterizing conservatism
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time. So this tells us what anti-conservatism must be: the proposition that the law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone, and cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.
George Monbiot
- I'd rather be a hypocrite than a cynic like Julie Burchill
Hypocrisy is the gap between your aspirations and your actions. Greens have high aspirations - they want to live more ethically - and they will always fall short. But the alternative to hypocrisy isn't moral purity (no one manages that), but cynicism. Give me hypocrisy any day.
Kahlil Gibran
- Sand and Foam: A Book of Aphorisms
The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say.
Thomas Paine
- Moderation
Those words, "temperate and moderate," are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good, is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.
Daniel Polansky
- The Builders (pp. 30-31)
Cinnabar had calm eyes, friendly eyes, eyes that smiled and called you "sir" or "madam", depending on the case, eyes like cool water on a hot day. Cinnabar had hands that made corpses, lots of corpses, walls and stacks of them. Cinnabar's eyes never seemed to feel anything about what his hands did.
Lindy West
- Break the period taboo: my name is Lindy West and I bleed
Maybe if girls felt free to talk about their periods in shouts instead of whispers, boys wouldn't grow up thinking that vaginas are disgusting and mysterious either. Maybe women would go to the doctor more. Maybe fewer women would die of cervical and uterine cancer. Maybe everyone would have better sex. Maybe women would finally be considered fully formed human beings, instead of off-brand men with defective genitals.
Joycelyn Elders
If I could be the "condom queen" and get every young person who engaged in sex to use a condom in the United States, I would wear a crown on my head with a condom on it! I would!
Chris Clarke
- How Not To Be An Asshole: A Guide For Men
If no woman in your life has ever talked to you about how she lives her life with an undercurrent of fear of men, consider the possibility that it may be because she sees you as one of those men she cannot really trust.
Hannah Arendt
- The Origins of Totalitarianism
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (the standards of thought) no longer exist.
George Orwell
- Looking Back on the Spanish War
Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as 'the truth' exists. There is, for instance, no such thing as 'science'. There is only 'German science', 'Jewish science' etc. The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past. If the Leader says of such and such an event, 'It never happened' - well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five - well, two and two are five.
Russell Brand
- we deserve more from our democratic system
When I was poor and I complained about inequality people said I was bitter, now I'm rich and I complain about inequality they say I'm a hypocrite. I'm beginning to think they just don't want inequality on the agenda.
Elon Musk
- Vows to Make Orbit
We haven't gotten into orbit, true, but we've made considerable progress. If it's an all-or-nothing proposition then we've failed. But it's not all or nothing. We must get to orbit eventually, and we will. It might take us one, two or three more tries, but we will. We will make it work. (How do you maintain your optimism?) Do I sound optimistic? (Yeah, you always do.) Optimism, pessimism, fuck that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work.
