The Pain of Being a Man

A quote attributed to meme star Dr. Samuel Johnson by a Reverend Percival Stockdale, popularized by Hunter S. Thompson and often internet misattributed to Dr. Seuss: “He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.” Ugh, this paragraph was annoying to write.

What is the pain of being a man? Let’s automatically discard the old time sexism as irrelevant. The pain, then, of being human?

For me (surely different from Johnson), the pain is in that we are the first (and almost certainly last) species to arise on this planet with the ability to see what we’re doing wrong, see ourselves hurtling toward extinction, and be completely fucking powerless to do anything about it. It’s more depressing than the cosmically depressing things, such as life being meaningless and doomed by an indifferent Universe.

We should, with our powers of thought, be able to start a dynasty of thinking beings that lasts at least a few billion years into the future. As it stands? We’ll be lucky to escape the next few hundred years. Massively cheated by our collective incompetence. We are constitutionally incapable of escaping our animal ignorance and greed. The ability of some individuals to get past that? Somehow amounts to nothing, every fight, every time.

I’m of a mind to keep fighting for what’s right, even in the face of defeat. Don’t let the Cheetos of the world think we’re all on the same page, we’re all ready to dickride him into that bad night. To whatever extent we can make The Man sad, that’s the only satisfaction I’m expecting out of the fight.

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War, All Day Every Day, Until We Are Gone

Largest non-nuclear bomb ever dropped was shat out on Afghanistan, because Syria somehow. There is nothing we can possibly do to rise to the level of the threat against the human species that Trump and his fuckhead legions represent, which makes it a good time to consult your reasons for fighting in the face of certain defeat, like those French Resistance folks. More accurately, like the German resistance to Hitler. All those lovely dead people.

So war, all day every day, against those who kill thousands at a time for fun and profit, against those who poison the biosphere and condemn our species to earn pennies on their stocks, against those who exploit hatred of every class of “other” to make Amurrican jackoffs vote against their own interest in every fucking way, every fucking time. A war where maybe the second worst outcome is the extinction of our species.

I say second worst because I consider the eternal reich of racist sexist dominionist eugenicist queer-killers to be a skosh worse than death. Probably not going to last forever because it may already be too late to prevent global warming from killing us off in a thousand different ways. So I guess that’s going to be my point of hope for the moment.

Anyhow, long live the fighters. G’night!

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Anyone Watching Agents of Shield?

Just got caught up today. I think Madame Hydra was pretty cool, the whole creepy What If? scenario is giving some opportunities for thoughtful writing about psychology, philosophy, and ethics. Not as simplistic as that sort of thing could be, which is good, because in the past fifty years we’ve had hella different shows using the same Mirror Mirror setup. I admit it’s a fun premise, but also fun to see it being handled with maturity instead of slapping goatees on fools.

Expect SPOILERS in the comments, if anyone does comment.

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Islamophobia: Still Real

It’s a perennial debate in the atheistical community, and a snoozer.  Many of us are total patsies for the man, gleefully feeding the xenophobia that got The Fascist Orange elected.  I’m only making this post to add balance to a fleeting list of text that shall be subsumed beneath the tides of internet.  It’s not even worth discussing any more, honestly.  No one is changing their mind, are they?
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Happy Down with Cis Day!

It’s the second annual International Down with Cis Day, and I wanted to make cool art for it, but all I got for you is this rough draft. It’s the thought that counts!

original art by great american satan

This is an image in a cartouche style. The base is a front view of that infamous cryptid the “Down with Cis Bus.” Above that we see a ambiguously gendered person in girly accessories and a hockey mask, fists crossed, and a banner reading, “Go for the face all you want… You can’t stop the brutalization.” In front of that, we see the letters DWC.

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Is Atheism or Religiosity Innate?

Is atheism or religiosity innate? I don’t know.

I’ve thought about this from time to time. This time it was inspired by a comment someone made here about asexuality that I realized was similar to an atheist experience, and as asexuality is an innate characteristic, could atheism be as well? Another time I thought about it briefly and dismissed it without further consideration, it was popular science nonsense about a region of the brain supposedly there to make faith happen – a “god lobe” or whatever they called it.

What would it mean for one’s status with regards to god belief, for it to be innate? To me, it would mean that the belief or lack thereof, once set by development (natural inclination + environment), would be something we cannot truly change about ourselves. That belief isn’t something we can have a choice about, and that debating the matter is just about completely pointless.

I act as if that’s true already. You don’t see me arguing directly with theists here, not that they ever come around. Now, is that a good way to be? The argument is often made that the debate isn’t to convert your opponent, but to give undecided bystanders something to chew on. And where would someone with flexible god belief fit into this concept? Call ’em demitheistic?

This path of inquiry could get wildly offensive, I suspect. It’s my Friday tomorrow (today?), and the work week turns my brains into mush. Not thinking of all the ramifications, I’m sure.

As I see it from mush PoV, feels for and against:

For: Anecdotally, it really feels like I have no control over what I believe, strongly feels like any attempt to “choose faith” would be a toxic act of self-abuse, a time for buzzing cognitive dissonance that couldn’t last long. When you look at someone like Stephen Colbert “choosing” Catholicism – well aware of all the towering unbeatable arguments against it, it’s easy to imagine he’s just innately religious – that it was the path of least resistance for him.

Against: God belief seems hella unnatural, at face value. I mean, it’s natural insofar as you can see the mechanisms that underpin it: pattern recognition gone haywire, fear of death making a denial of that reality tempting, and so on. But the concept of god just seems like an artifice that had to be contrived and communicated socially, not something that would arise out of a brain naturally. Then again, something something, bicameral mind theory, bleh bleh.

I have to be at work in seven hours. You get this post as is. Good day!

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Have a go at it, if you like. What do you think?

I’ve Seen the Light Yet Again…

April brings an important holiday or two. You know to
Pay extra attention at the beginning, work on your
Rational thought and skepticism. Also, it brings us
International Down with Cis Day. But you know what?
Listen. I’ve advocated for DwC Day before, wrongly.

For all this time I’ve believed that it was impossible,
Oppressing a privileged group from minority status.
Older now, I realize this is a mistake. Reverse racism
Lives, and heterophobia and cisphobia are real things.
Surely if I can see the light, you can to. #ALM, amen.

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Hothead Types Should Maybe Calm Down

Google tells me that “Threatening the President of the United States is a class E felony under United States Code Title 18, Section 871. It consists of knowingly and willfully mailing or otherwise making ‘any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States’.”  Now, my new wallpaper here may suggest harm should befall someone who technically is the POTUS, but I’d like to make clear that this is not in fact meant to represent the dude. After all, you see that the hair is not moored to the scalp, and Donny’s hair is. Also, small hands. Definitely not meant to resemble the POTUS. Just some kind of metaphorical face of American fascism, that should only metaphorically be smashed.

It’s easy to get carried away given the enormity of the terrifying changes being made to our country, and to think about drastic measures. But that’s just, I don’t know, scary. Maybe more scary than Bannon’s apocalyptic racist global war agenda. OK, not that scary. But surely it’s bad news. Everything’s bad news. Gotta try and ride the wave like a teenaged mutant ninja turtle. Cool my hot head. Yeah. Easy.

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Need of a Word

Fear and hatred of nonconforming people in the most general sense – anyone who is not like the most powerful categories of people in a given society. Maybe it could be considered the motivational force behind kyriarchy? I was having a conversation with someone who wanted to express an idea where this would have been useful, and we were collectively stumped.

This leads me to realize it might be handy to have different forms of the main terms in social justice parlance that haven’t been broadly disseminated yet. Let’s see if this clarifies what I’m thinking about or makes it worse:

Emotional Motive – Form of Oppression
Misogyny – Patriarchy
Racism – (Dominant Race*) Supremacy
Homophobia – Heteronormativity
My Mystery Word – Kyriarchy

*Example: Japanese in Japan, White in the USA.

I feel like there could be another column in that chart I’m just not thinking of right now, and that I’m probably screwing up the chart as is by missing some obvious terms. I’m a little sick today.

EDIT TO ADD:
The person said I should add some context. The discussion was about how – especially in high school – people hate “weirdos,” which could be just about anybody. This attitude continues into adulthood on some level: “Don’t do that or people will think you’re weeird,” “What do you think you’re special because you’re different? A special snowflake?”

Some parents would like a given child less because they didn’t want the things they’d expected: a business major, procreating, naturally colored hair, etc. Generally, shunning or abusing someone for simply being different – which can of course intersect with ableism, homophobia, transphobia, racism, misogyny, and so on.

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If You Use the Term “Political Correctness”…

If you use the term “political correctness” at all, there’s a pretty strong chance you are a giant fucking asshole. Just seems to be the case, ever since it was popularized by Newt Gingrich’s rethuglicans, circa 199x. Not really meaning to start shit as much as the most recent person to use the term here surely was. If the answer to shitty speech being exercised is not limitation, but more freely exercised speech, then this is that and nothing more.

EDIT TO ADD: Don’t bother commenting, for or against. I’m not having this discussion here. Personally, I’m not having it anywhere, but people are welcome to do what they will on their own platforms and amenable arenas.

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