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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • There are a lot of appearances of them in stories dating back to pre-islamic middle eastern times, so there are a lot of stories.
    In one, a man finds a lamp in the sand and rubs it to wipe the dust off. This wakes the genie who is pissed to be woken up, and decided to kill the man and his entire family. The man freaks out, on account of getting himself and family killed, and in a moment of desperation asks the genie how someone as great and powerful as they are could fit in such a small lamp. Genie scoffs at the mans ignorance, says he can turn into smoke, like this, and just zip in, like ^so. The man stuffs a cork in the lamp, trapping the genie. The genie demands to be let out, and the man agrees on the condition that the genie swears to spare him and his family. Genie agrees, and the man lets him out.
    In another, a man sitting under a tree throws a fruit pit over his shoulder, and then a genie appears saying he’s gonna kill him because the fruit hit his invisible son and instantly killed him. The man is rightfully ‘wtf’ about this, but the genie is very serious, throws the man to the ground and pulls out his sword. As he’s about to be killed, the man exclaims that he has a family, children, people he’s responsible for, and that if the genie lets him go and arrange his affairs so that they’re taken care of and don’t suffer he swears he’ll come back and let the genie do as he wills. The genie says that’s fair, and tells the man to return on the first day of the new year.
    Man goes home, settles his affairs, spends time with his family and generally does what one would do knowing you’re gonna die in a specific day. Day comes around, everything is prepared and ready, the man loads his burial clothes in his backpack and heads out. Gets to the tree and is sitting there crying when a scholar comes along leading a gazelle on a leash, and he asks the man’s story. Hearing it, the scholar swears to stay with him until the end. Another scholar comes past as they wait, this one with two majestic dogs. He too swears to wait with the man. A third shows up with a mule, same story.
    Finally, as the man is almost crazed with fear and grief, the genie shows up and demands the man stand to be killed. He does, and as the genie prepares to strike, one of the scholars asks the genie if he’ll give him 1/3 of the man’s life debt if, upon hearing the story of him and the gazelle, he’s amazed and delighted. Story told, it’s amazing, and the genie continues to collect his 2/3 life debt when the same happens with the scholar with the majestic dogs, and then again with the scholar with the mule until the man’s life debt has been satisfied. Genie leaves, man profusely thanks the scholars who explain that it’s all in a days work for three old scholars wandering around with an eclectic collection of animals.
    In large part, it’s intended to serve as a framing story for the scholars.

    They serve a lot of purposes that are also often filled by fairy, leprechauns, or demons, so twisted wishes are just another iteration of careful wording being required when talking to strange powerful beings who offer you something being fun to think about. Over time, it twisted from needing to think through what you wish for and you’ll be fine, to Amelia Bedilia style hyper literal interpretation, and then to downright malicious compliance bb b



  • You don’t have to go out of your way to defend things that are putting a nice veneer on eugenics.

    And for the record, if you read the article it’s clearly about them being arrogant and generally absolutely fucking weird. “If more people like us don’t have children, the world will stop seeing innovation and economic prosperity. It’s very important that the right people reproduce.”


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_and_Malcolm_Collins

    Well that’s just a fucking trip of dysfunction.

    Just that bit is a lot.

    If the population declined and it makes the economy do less well, won’t people just have more children like they did the last time the economy was in that state? Every environment has a carrying capacity for the creatures that live in it. It’s not uncommon to see fluctuations above and below that equilibrium point.
    Instead of pushing people to ignore the factors that cause the limit in humans, like not wanting or needing more children, maybe find a way to organize society so hitting that limit doesn’t cause massive problems, or try to eliminate some of the factors creating the limit. It’s insanely difficult in our society to have even one child who’s healthy, cared for, and prepared for their adult life while also being personally healthy, prepared for old age, and enjoying the variety of pleasures of existence.


  • The flip side is we don’t think about the old ACs that destroyed themselves inside the expected lifetime, we only see the freaks that blast on regardless of damage and just never deteriorate. If the old ones all lasted 50+ years, we wouldn’t see people needing to buy new ones.

    It’s still probably the case that older devices without plastic control boards lasted longer, but it’s worth remembering that we only see the edge cases.
    Also, some of the old appliances will keep trying to function even when they’ve degraded to the point of being nearly inoperable, where the new device will be able to detect that it’s not working right and shutdown, probably before it’s not worth it to run anymore, but probably in time to be reparable.







  • going as far as putting lgbt flags on government buildings

    In and of itself, the allegation that the only reason people might want to do some sort of show of solidarity or support for a historical marginalized community is because it’s being pushed by non-specific monied interests for non-specific reasons is transphobic.
    So is the notion that it’s in the public discourse only because of big money. I’d argue it’s because there’s been a massive transphobic pushback against civil rights by religious fundamentalists and conservative groups. They run for office on culture was issues, so transphobia is a campaign issue.

    When was the last time a civil rights issue was pushed by the bourgeoisie?
    When was the last time someone said “this is being pushed by the bourgeoisie and big money” about something they approved of?

    Putting up a flag at a government building is an extremely low bar to saying something is backed by powerful money.

    allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports at the Olympics.

    Just going to skip over that bit? Echoing an entirely fabricated claim that someone is trans as an attack on that person is clearly swinging some transphobia around.

    Replying to someone and sharing your opinion doesn’t make your opinion not transphobic if it’s, you know: “a transphobic opinion”.
    As I said, I read the context. Saying trans rights are part of a bourgeois conspiracy isn’t better when it’s in response to someone saying transphobia is part of a bourgeois conspiracy. It’s a transphobic opinion regardless of why you’re sharing it.

    What, pray tell, are my alleged “bad intentions”? Should I ponder what your bad intentions are for jumping in to defend transphobia, unprompted, weeks after the fact?



  • Couple things: a statement relating to unspecified testing about one failed test to Russian state media is a pretty far cry from “it kind of holds up”.

    I’m glad you avoid manufactured outrage. In this case, the manufactured outrage is from the people falsely claiming a woman is secretly transgender and spreading misinformation, like in the original post you seem to not have a problem with.

    You don’t see what accusing someone of being transgender to undermine their win has to do with transgender issues?

    Also, “transexual” is not the preferred nomenclature. Transgender is. The former is an older, dated term and is generally best avoided.



  • Middle of the image you’re responding to, when they refer to “allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports at the Olympics”.

    Said Algerian boxer became the center of claims that she was actually trans and competing against women unfairly after she punched another boxer in the face, like boxers do, and the other boxer had to drop out on account of “face all messed up”.

    See my previous comment for a breakdown on the validity of that claim, and maybe some understanding of why it’s just a big pile of ignorance and hate.



  • Are you referring to the topic of “lgbtq people deserve rights”, or are you referring to “the boxer is a woman”? And when you say “embezzle biological from the sentence”, what do you mean? I think I know, but I would like to be clear.

    To be entirely clear: Imane Khelif, the Algerian women’s Olympic boxer, is a cis, born, biological, genetic, assigned female at birth, raised as a woman, anatomical, woman. Trans women are also women, but in this case she is not a trans woman, so the whole thing is just multiple levels of awful and gross.
    All controversy surrounding her is factually inaccurate, transphobic and sexist, which is quite the combo.

    Lgbtq rights and respect are entirely an ideological issue. I don’t think anyone argued that it wasn’t. Lgbtq rights are human rights, and human rights beliefs are intrinsically ideological.
    They’re not being promoted by companies, they’re being leveraged or "exploited* by companies who have realized that human rights are popular.
    The objective is to get money from people. What other objective do you think a company would have? Do you think they’re trying to promote being trans for some reason?