• 3 Posts
  • 429 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: September 6th, 2024

help-circle



  • Eh. You are a piece of software running on meat. Every night, there are long periods where ‘you’, the conscious entity of your awareness, ceases to exist. You only dream for a small portion of the night. There are times when you are simply gone.

    Yet we have no problem accepting this fact. We’ve just collectively accepted that there is some continuity of consciousness between each day. But it couldn’t be further from the truth. You have the memories of yesterday, but ‘you’ have not been in continued conscious existence since yesterday. In a very real sense, we are a series of single-day lifetimes stitched together across time.

    If you’ve ever gone under anesthesia, it’s even more jarring. When you’re under, you’re not asleep. You’re not dreaming. You’re just gone. The time passes in an instant.

    If my consciousness can be discontinuous through time, why can’t it be discontinuous through space? If I can believe that I am the same me as the mes of yesterday and tomorrow, why can I not believe that a remotely assembled copy of me is also me? I used to run on that meat, now I run on this meat. It’s all me in the end.





  • I want to see potential 2028 Democratic candidates NOW announce what they will do to right the wrongs of the current administration. For example, if I were running, I would publicly state:

    “To all those illegally removed while going through the lawful immigration or asylum process, I tell you, you will receive justice. I promise to use executive authority to create a fast track to immigration and citizenship for anyone unjustly removed from the country by Trump. Any immigrant denied their due process by the Trump administration will receive full US citizenship by the end of my first term. Let President Trump know that denying asylum seekers their day in court will do him no good in the end. Asylum claimants normally have a low chance of success. But for those whose rights were violated? I will guarantee them success. I will guarantee not only asylum status, but full citizenship, to any asylum seeker that Trump has violated in our names!”


  • Look what thinking cautiously has got us. Look what thinking audaciously has got them. What rational rational Republican voter would have thought that Trump was a good potential candidate in 2016? Rational opinion was that Trump was a candidate doomed from the start. Yet the Republicans through caution to the wind and went for the inspiring candidate. And look what it got them.

    Every election we choose the path of least resistance. Every election we talk ourselves out of the truly inspiring candidate, all in the name of electability. How many Democrats have voted against the progressive primary candidate, the one who could inspire, the one who could rally…all in the name of electability? Hillary was the candidate in 2016 because she was more electable than Bernie. Biden was the candidate in 2020 because he was more electable than Bernie. Biden was nearly the candidate in 2024 because sticking with the incumbent was simply the rational and cautious move.

    Maybe it’s time we have faith for once. Maybe it’s time we believe in ourselves and our message for a change. Maybe it’s time to stop talking ourselves out of running our strongest potential candidates. As a great poet said, you have to believe in impossible things, or else they can never come to be.


  • Depends. Have you ever had a passport in your dead name? That is the critical question. If so, then they can see it in your records when you go for a passport renewal. And if so, you’ll receive a passport back under your birth sex.

    As far as the effects of having an incorrect passport gender marker? It can get you in a lot of trouble. I’m a trans gal myself. There’s no easy way for me to even prove that I am trans. I could strip naked in front of someone and it wouldn’t be obvious. Yet under these rules, when I update my passport, I’ll end up with an M marker. This will make it nearly impossible for to travel internationally.

    This can cause big issues when crossing a border. It can mean you’re pulled aside for extra scrutiny. It can get you outright turned away from countries hostile to lgbt people. It can make border agents suspect your entirely legitimate document is fake. Hell, the same conservatives who would give me such a document would argue I’m committing some act of fraud for dressing and looking a way that doesn’t match my documents.

    Just imagine what trouble you might encounter if any basic info on your ID was clearly wrong. Imagine your passport says your height is a foot different from your actual height. Can you not see how that would obviously cause you problems when trying to cross a border?







  • Why, in the name of all that is good and holy, should we require someone whose dream it is to be a carpenter, to take calculus to graduate high school? In what universe will that requirement be doing any good in their life? What will it serve other than a potential completely arbitrary barrier to simply graduating from high school? And a carpenter is actually far more mathematically inclined than most career paths people pursue.

    Yes, learning calculus can be a revelation in mathematical beauty. But the same is true for a thousand potential fields of study. In terms of practical use to most people, they would all be equally frivolous. A case could be made that a thousand fields of study are something that people simply must be exposed to. I’m more in favor of letting people choose their own path. We shouldn’t be piling on arbitrary barriers on to a diploma that is only meant to signify basic competence.