So I had a dream the other night where Chris Chibnall freaked out so much at the (inevitable) “female Doctor using the sonic as a vibrator” response from fandom that he gave Whitaker’s Doctor a fucking Glock.
But, like. She didn’t shoot anything. She just threw it at people.
If anything, the fact that most of the world’s people don’t have qualitative access to the fruits of education and technology works in capitalism’s favor. If all people had a sufficient education in this day and age, and archaic conceptions of intellectual property were abolished, we’d see constant creative booms in STEM and the arts. This would mean that sustainable technologies and labor-saving automation could be improved upon nigh-exponentially. In turn, a scenario like that would lay capitalist contradictions more visible for the lower classes of the world to see, and the system’s longevity would be put in jeopardy. Capitalism benefits from having a dispossessed, impoverished workforce that will accept whatever wage on offer, alongside the “unlimited” extraction process of capital accumulation that needs a society of dependent consumers; capitalism is not in the business of making itself obsolete.
It’s kind of funny how much effort the Powers That Be put into restricting access to information. It’s not a finite resource and it’s not prone to devaluation. A PhD in chemical engineering doesn’t become less valuable if you double the number of chemical engineering doctorates. It doesn’t do less or apply less. Information and education can be reproduced nearly infinitely nearly effortlessly.
Imagine how easy it would be for every textbook to be released as a pdf and for every college professor to post all of their lectures as a youtube series. We would allow everyone to reach their desired level of education for free with no boundaries.
But, nobody would make any money off of this. It would involve giving away for free what could be rationed out for dear. And so despite the fact that it would instantly and unequivocally make the world a universally better place, it doesn’t happen because nobody makes enough profit to make it happen.
This is also why we see people coming up with cures for diseases all the time but never see the treatments in action. They stand to make more money if they keep you sick and on medication. They give you a band-aid solution which leaves you coming back for a new band-aid again and again. Same thing with phones and other personal technology. They have the tools to make the perfect phone and they know exactly what the people want from their devices based on reviews and complaints. From a capitalist perspective, it makes more sense to make subtle changes every year and keep increasing the price. One of the most effective ways to increase profits is to impede progress.
but when they DO find a way to get the treatments in action, the FDA gives them special protections to have a monopoy on the product so the pharm companies buy up all these patents then sell their medicine at extremely high prices since they have a monopoly on the medicine.
Um, no. The reason why we see “people coming up with cures all the time” and ‘never see them in action’ is because most of the things you see in the media reported as cures are not, in fact, cures for human diseases, or are treatments with very narrow application. When the media reports ‘Scientists discover new drug which cures rumblytummikens’, what has usually happened is this:
In other words, you, the researcher, conduct a study which finds that hanging upside down for twelve hours a day, for two weeks, prolonged the lives if your test subjects. Which were twenty mice, genetically engineered to manifest rumblytummikens. And by prolonged, you mean that of your twenty test mice, fifteen where still alive two months after your treatment regime, whereas only five in your control group – twenty mice genetically engineered to manifest rumblytummikens but not subjected to the hanging upside down treatment regime – were still alive.
You write a paper saying that something about being hung upside down may provide some benefit to mice with rumblytummikens. A swift game of telephone follows, and next thing you know, some naturopath is telling frightened parents that the cure for their kid’s life-threatening case of rumblytummikens is hanging upside down from the monkeybars twice a day.
Protip for men: if marriage is a horrifying concept for you and you think it is an evil trap, do not buy a ring and ask a woman to marry you
I’m way over seeing radical feminist bullshit on my dash. This isn’t even social justice or a real issue.
sorry that not marrying someone you dont loathe is radical feminism i guess?
women: don’t propose or get married if u don’t like the thought of marriage
men: what kind of sjw fuckery
the other bit that this implies is:
If you like your wife, act like it. Even around your friends. Be open and honest about liking your wife, liking spending time with her, and not being resentful of the shared work of building a household. Let your buddies know you can’t hang out with them because you’d rather be home with your wife, whom you like, because she is your legit bff, even though you know your buddies are gonna mock you for it.
Stand up to your buddies. Tell them mocking isn’t cool and you don’t want them to do it anymore. Challenge the other men in your life to be better men.
That is what “don’t get married if you think marriage is an evil trap” implies to men who are married. And while it’s all completely reasonable I imagine that it’s scary as fuck when it’s just so much easier to har de har har the little woman’s such a nag, ain’t she, don’t we all hate being married so much? with other men.
In that context, “don’t get married if you think marriage is an evil trap” is kindof a radical statement.
The number of guys I work with who are engaged who started pulling the “uh oh, life over soon, har har” shit that I have completely shut down with a simple “well if you don’t want to get married, then don’t”…*sigh* And they’re just like, hem, haw, welllll if I don’t then she might not stay with meee, which I respond to with “well, sounds like you need to have a pretty serious and honest conversation with your fiancee about your feelings then” and then the *panic!* look…When you remove that easy “hah hah ball-and-chain” narrative, watch the reaction. Some of them (to a female friend) will mumblingly admit that they love their fiancee and are excited to be married. Others…all you get is fear.
That’s the disservice we do men by refusing to teach boys how to explore their emotional needs. It hurts everyone. I watched three male friends walk into marriages I can tell they weren’t ready for and didn’t want, just because it was expected and they had no tools for emotional self-examination. Two of those marriages are (shockingly) in crisis, a couple years later. One has kids involved now. It’s more than a little heartbreaking. The marriages I see that are working? Are the guys with the emotional maturity to talk to their wives and who don’t care if everyone knows they’re in love with them.
SERIOUSLY.
My friend is getting married this summer and when I congratulated her fiance on their engagement he said to me “Yeah well you know, women. This is what they want so you have to bite the bullet.” and my other friend’s husband who was sitting next to him laughed and agreed. If this is how you feel, don’t get married. Don’t propose. Just…. Don’t. Do it. Any of it.
Straight people think that doing things you really don’t want to do – like marriage and having kids – is normal cos they’re still stuck in a fucking 19th century mindset.
It’s why I know my best friend got a good one, he’s open about how much he loves her and he’s excited to be getting married and regularly contributes ideas and has his own input, it’s nice to see
It filters through as well. Even being gay, a lot of my straight friends don’t understand why I spend so much time with my husband. Because I love him? Because I enjoy his company? Because he’s my best friend? I can’t count the amount of straight people that have told me that they think it’s “weird” that my husband and I spend so much quality time together. The only person who understood was my mom, whose response was: “If you love someone and genuinely enjoy their company, why WOULDN’T you want to spend your free time with them?!”
How can anyone look at their impending marriage and think ‘oh no, it’s all over now’ like???? I’ve only felt so close to so many people in my life, but those small few were like?? I’d wake up in the morning excited to be awake just to look forward to SEEING them. I’d catch myself with this stupid idiot grin in broad daylight just THINKING ABOUT BEING AROUND THEM. I’d sleep easy with them in my head, shitty days became perfect once I spoke to them. THAT’s how I imagine feeling again someday. I think about feeling that way for someone again and it’s like the whole future opens up. Marriage is finding your best friend in the whole wide world and wanting to have a sleepover every single day, and to agree to it and then go around groaning like your freedom is being stolen is a HUGE disrespect. If you have the freedom to share your life with anyone you like and you throw it around like baggage you really can’t expect it to grow, can you? You gotta care about yourself a little more than that I think
All of this.
Not to mention this mentality makes it’s way TO THE DAY OF THE WEDDING. How many weddings have we seen with something like this:
Like what kind of toxic mentality do you have to have to say this as the bride is about to walk down the aisle and marry someone who it’s now suggested doesn’t even want to be there?? How is this cute? How is this supposedly charming? This is supposed to be the person you love and want to be with! And not to mention that you send this down the aisle with a small child (the ring bearer or the flower girls)…I have a special loathing for things like this.
Holy shit I didn’t know that was even a thing.
This reminds me of a study I read about years ago with statistics on happiness/stability in relationships of people of various genders/orientations, and straight people were at the very bottom. (And lesbians were at the top! Not a huge surprise, given that women are generally more inclined to communicate and work out emotions and issues.)
