Just read Tear Tracks by Malka Older.

A short story exploring the suffering, sacrifice and strengths needed to be a good leader.

The main human protagonist makes contact with an alien race and attempts to open a dialogue with them. The humans carry their own concepts of what attributes a leader needs. They do not align with the culture of the alien race.

Consensus isn’t found and the humans leave with a new appreciation of suffering and strength.

It lead me to think our own leaders would be better at their jobs if they endured more suffering and enjoyed less privilege.

#bookreview #SciFi #SciFiBooks #Politics #shortstory #ethics #Philosophy

Hi! I’m almost three years into transition (#TransitionTimeline of my PFPs below); I waited until I was 37 to start because I didn’t have some pretty basic info. Specifically:

- Daydreaming about being the other gender isn’t something cis people do very often. But it is something #trans people do a lot before they transition.

- #Transition from one gender to another can take many forms, and everyone gets to choose what transition options are right for them.

- Medical transition can include taking hormones (called #HRT) that put the body through puberty a second time, this time developing the secondary sexual characteristics of a different gender. These meds are available in much of the US with only a bit of paperwork called #InformedConsent - it says you have been told what the effects will be, and confirms that you want them.

It didn’t take much. Once I had those pieces, I immediately knew I wanted to transition.

I won’t lie: the political situation in the US for trans people is kinda dark. I can tell you with confidence, though, that for me, I’d much rather run the risk of political violence than stay in the closet. I was killing myself slowly with alcohol and neglect.

If this resonates with you, I want you to know that in my experience, trans people and trans community are the most vibrant and joyful people I’ve ever encountered. If you are discovering or accepting that you are trans, welcome. Living can be wonderful, and I want that for you.

, Willow

RE: https://social.coop/@cwebber/116217477822586442

The whole "AI" industry is just based on the hope that they can deskill people fast enough that they'll have to rent back cognitive support systems. Forever.

It's like Uber. Just that they don't try to break existing transportation infrastructures but your brain.

I saw a post recently that was arguing that you should stop using alcohol wipes when giving yourself hrt injections because it's too wasteful, literally saying that the possibility of sepsis is worth not using a square inch of cotton per week.

They weren't arguing for more efficient solutions, ways of recycling the material, or anything like that. It was just "you should facetank risk of infection in order to not create waste"

And goddamn isn't that everything I've been noticing lately about how people talk about technology and progress and waste these days; a kind of reactionary tech-pessimism.

I recently had a student argue that we should never have invested in NASA or the space program because rocketry can also be used for weapons, damn all the other things that came out of it like weather satellites.

Westerners literally make up stories about the Fukushima Daiichi plant, talking about people who are walking-dead cleaning up the site since they'd already had a lethal level of radiation exposure. Sorry, what's that? No one died from radiation exposure when Fukushima Daiichi failed? That doesn't feel right.

The power grid! My god, the power grid. Everyone is so hung up on "what if we ban datacenters" but, guys, the US power grid has been decaying from austerity and intentional conservative sabotage for decades. Remember when rotted infrastructure caused wildfires a few years ago in California? The primer driver of your power bills is that, not facilities still under construction. We have to fight and build solar and improve transmission between states so we can actually send that electricity places!

Like we can't embrace our own "reject modernity". We just can't. The answer can't be "stop using air conditioning", "stop using electricity", "stop using satellites", "stop using alcohol wipes".

Recently, I wrote that aware LGBT people who help obvious bigoted patients, clients, and customers etc. need to assert the VALUE of their contributions by withholding them, either obviously or covertly, from people who are fixated on destroying them. Otherwise they grease wheels being steered to run over them and their own kind, then others, because antisocial hating respects no boundaries and has little conscience.

In came a predictably submissive reply, a person saying they had been raised (conditioned) to be nice to everyone in order to be 'better than the problem'.
I replied that was a naivety many had died with before, and that insisting on helping only those who would not abuse you is not being 'nasty'. It is having integrity, not being a doormat or complicit.

Now look at this headline - obvious murderous genocide in plain sight. I can guess how being 'nice' would go for the person if their own loved one's life-preserving medications were cut off.
This is the real equation.

'Florida suddenly cuts off 12,000 people from receiving their HIV meds'

https://www.advocate.com/news/florida-cuts-hiv-meds-for-thousands

#LGBT #USA #Florida #corruption #health #hiv #hospitality #services #healthcare

I'm not a car person, so I never really paid attention to car makes or models before. Sure, I knew that there were Hondas and Hyundais, but unless someone was actively pointing them out, I couldn't tell you which was which.

Then I became the owner of a little red Ford Focus, and I started driving it around.

Next thing I knew, I was spotting them *everywhere*. I'd come out of the grocer and there'd be identical ones parked on both sides of me! Hell, I eventually got a window decal so I could more easily tell which was mine 😋

A couple years ago I discovered I was lactose intolerant, and—bear with me, these stories are connected—I started keeping lactaid with me wherever I went (just to be safe). I started paying attention to just how much dairy was in things, and wow, spoiler: it's in like *everything* 😅

Over the past couple years, I've gotten pretty used to being lactose intolerant. I keep lactase handy, and I watch out for things with "too much dairy". It's just become background noise—like noticing other Ford Focuses (Foci?). It's just part of my life now.

A couple months ago I got propositioned by a creep in my hotel's lobby.

A couple weeks ago I had slurs yelled at me as I walked down the street with my mom.

A couple days ago someone told me to kill myself in a DM.

Every day, someone says "really? I don't see stuff like that here".