One of the saddest things on #Facebook is when a woman posts a bit of relationship advice, particularly about what women want, and men go out of their way to tell her that she's wrong, and they know because they're single and lonely.

Sigh.

There is neither shame nor pride in blocking people on CoSo. It's just a tool to help each of us curate our own attention.

Pro tip: Check the facts just as thoroughly when the other side looks bad as you do when your side does.

And please use hashtags on here for content people are trying to keep their attention away from.

"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." -- Christopher Hitchens (now called Hitchens' Razor).

This stuff is shockingly mainstream in #Christian circles.

I felt compelled to take notes to remind myself of all these elements that I am actively rejecting from how I was indoctrinated for the first 30+ years of my life.

Propaganda works by dehumanising people. Many church folks are so propagandised that they cannot even feel it anymore.

They're conditioned to feel *really* lucky to be in their in-group. It works by accepting, and saying, any insult about any out-group, for any reasons.

#religion
#Christianity

After several years outside of their circles, I went to my parents' church over my vacation. Here's my rundown of the ~30min sermon:

--Pre-emptive strike at science and philosophy to discredit any opposition before it starts.
--Sexism (with vague swipe at feminism)
--Homophobia
--Transphobia
--An endorsement of capitalism
--Worm theology; it is actually part of their Statement of Faith -- a core, binding document -- that humans live under God's condemnation by default!

I just watched Barbie last night. It's still new enough that I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, but I want to make a comment that I haven't seen anywhere else yet:

There are no guns in this movie.

That's an impressive feat for Hollywood in 2023.

I guess Meta is banking on the fact that its target audience is too young to remember Threads (1984), the single most awful, horrible, disturbing movie I've ever seen.

I just saw an opinion in a news outlet that the US Supreme Court has an image problem.

The problems of the US Supreme Court go way deeper than image. Way, way deeper.

#politics

The WEF (World Economic Forum) is decried by the right for the power it wields.

They straight-up deny all the environmental and economic needs it's addressing, and staunchly disagree with everything about it on principle that it's a powerful alliance.

It's fascinating to me how hollow this is. Take a cursory glance at the powerful alliances on the right. They just want power to prevent people from doing good, important things with power, and they just cannot see the blatant hypocrisy in that.

Beware of people who glibly accuse anyone else of having an ideology, or an agenda, or of being in a cult, but who have no awareness that saying such things reveals that they are following an ideology, or an agenda, or are in a cult.

This kind of accusation is intended to spark an emotional response, and so it's easy to miss the confession it contains.

People who put a disproportionate value on freedom impose a heightened burden of responsibility on the people around them. #ShowerThoughts

People in this pattern are not truly convinced of their conclusion themselves.

This could/should be a moment of vulnerability, and possibly learning, but too often vulnerability is hidden under a shield of anger and aggression.

Telling someone who is activated like this that they don't believe their own conclusions is generally fruitless. That strategy is also too often weaponised within a heated argument.

But perhaps there's potential in asking what it would take to change their mind.

Have you seen someone caught using poor logic to back up some kind of truth claim, who then jumps to a different, equally weak argument -- and they do it again, and again?

There's a great word for that: flailing.

People who are committed to their conclusion without investing much thought in it will try anything to justify it. You needn't to waste your energy trying to disprove all of their unserious arguments. Just point out they're flailing, and they're not convincing you.

Forgive me CoSo, for I have sinned. It's been 10 minutes since I last looked at Twitter.

(I was doing so well for so long...)
(It's still a soul-destroying mess.)

My fellow Canadians: I don't wish you a happy Canada Day. I wish you a *good* Canada Day.

Our country has done so much that is worth celebrating, and so much that is worth deeply grieving.

It is important to incorporate all of this into our reflections on what our national identity has been, what it is, and what we want it to be.

We've suddenly entered the era when photos, videos and audio recordings are no longer reliable evidence. The capacity to spoof anyone, for any reason, is in the hands of the masses.

This will have a sweeping societal impact, affecting every level and scale of human interaction. Democracy is already threatened by propaganda -- now "evidence" will be available to justify every presumptuon, every prejudice.

We're not ready for this.

It's very tempting to blame a communication breakdown on the receiver.

Not at all productive. But very tempting.

I just watched Avatar: the Way of Water recently. I wonder about it.

Does it have the capacity to make us fall in love with our own planet? Or is its net effect escapism/defeatism, because what we experience of our planet is comparatively so flat/wrecked?

I remember hearing about "Pandora depression" among youth when the first one came out. They'd watch the movie repeatedly, as a kind of immersive addiction, and would feel depressed when their reality outside of the theatre didn't measure up.