I am laughing so hard because EA’s “Um, actually sweetie, us locking Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker behind two $260 paywalls in our $80 game is totally justifiable :)” comment not only broke the record for most downvoted post in Reddit history, it completely obliterated it. It wasn’t just the first to break 500k or even 100k, no post before it had even broken 25k. The most downvoted post prior to this was one from someone literally asking for downvotes, which currently stands at -23.8k. The shitstorm that came down on The Fine Brothers when they tried to lay claim to reaction videos and the word “react” itself only landed them just shy of 6,000 downvotes. As of this post, EA’s comment sits at negative 557 thousand when it’s only a day old, and it’s still getting thousands of downvotes by the hour. It could very well be the first post to get to a million downvotes. Remember, the previous record wasn’t even 25 thousand.
Meet the Mona Lisa of the Prado, the earliest known copy of Da Vinci’s best portrait. Similarity in the undersketch of the painting indicates that this was very likely painted concurrently with the original Mona Lisa, by a student of Da Vinci.
There is much controversy in the art world over the question of whether or not to clean the fragile Mona Lisa, but her sister has been restored and some fairly odd later alterations removed to show the original vibrant colors and lighting. Some details, such as the sheerness of her shawl and the pattern on the neckline of her dress, have become utterly obscured in the original, but in the restored copy they’re perfectly clear.
It blows my mind a little bit to look at these two sisters side-by-side and imagine how much vivid detail could be hiding in the Mona Lisa under 500 years of rotten varnish.
THE COPY HAS EYEBROWS
Your response to a beautiful piece of artwork done by Leonardo Da Vinci himself is “SHES GOT EYEBROWS”. Alright. All intelligent life has been lost.
Yo Snooty McSnotwhine, the Mona Lisa’s vanished eyebrows have been the subject of debate and analysis in the art expert community for hundreds of years, long before your parents squirted water at each other from across the clown car and then honked their bicycle horns to indicate they really wanted to make a smug, insufferable little clown baby together.
this continues to be the best reply to a criticizing comment on this site
i hate when scientists are like ‘this planet cant have aliens on it because there’s no water! the atmosphere is wrong! theres not enough heat to sustain life!’ because dude theyre aliens, nobodys saying they need any of those things to exist
we’re so humanocentric it’s infuriating. just because we can’t live there doesn’t mean nothing can! like, never mind aliens, we do this with our own fucking planet! scientists used to think nothing could possibly live at the bottom of the oceans, because “all life needs sunlight to survive, of course!” yet what did we find when we invented submarines that could go deep enough? the barren wasteland the scientists were expecting? fuck no! the bottom of the sea is teeming with all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures even wackier than anything they ever came up with in star trek!
when we discover aliens, we probably won’t even fucking realise it, because they’ll be so different from what we’re used to as ‘life’, we won’t even recognise them as living beings
things are heating up in the alien fandom
Another thing that bothers me is when scientists stumble upon a huge black hole or something and say shit like “it’s impossible, it shouldn’t exist, it breaks the laws of physics”…Buddy, do you know who made the laws of physics? HUMANS. HUMANS WHO HAVE NEVER EVEN LEFT THE SOLAR SYSTEM. It isn’t “breaking” anything. Maybe instead of saying it’s impossible to exist, you should look at these old laws from a different perspective. Science is an ever-changing field that’s full of discovery, but sometimes scientists are SO STUBBORN! I understand not wanting to have to rethink years of research but COME ON.
The problem with this discussion is that it’s based on false premises, i.e. that scientists are conservative people who view physics laws as religion and anything contradicting them as heresy. That’s a popular view often shown in fiction and in the popular press, and tends to make non-scientists feel good about themselves (”I may not know as much as them, but at least I’m not as close-minded”). It’s also a very inaccurate and insulting view of scientists.
While one can never generalise things across an entire group of people, and there are indeed scientists out there who are somewhat ossified (and in the end of the 19th century, it’s true that the science field in general was rather calcified. The public has just failed to notice scientists have moved on from this point of view), the vast majority are extremely forward-thinking and would like nothing better than being proven wrong in some cases. Science advances as much through its failures as through its successes, and it’s in fact the very basis of the scientific method to be ready to expose oneself to being proven wrong (that’s the meaning of having falsifiable theories: a theory is scientific only if it contains the seeds of its own potential destruction). When a scientist sees something incompatible with their previous knowledge, they don’t exclaim “that’s impossible!” but “that’s curious…”. Cracks in current theories are usually where new knowledge is hidden, so scientists actually actively look for them.
What the general audience mistakes as conservatism is actually a combination of traits that are vital for scientists to be able to do actual scientific work:
The threshold of proof is very high in science. Humans can easily be misled, our brains are specialists in fooling themselves, anecdote is not data, so don’t expect a scientist to take your tall tale at face value. To be worthy of scientific examination, a phenomenon must be repeatable, independent from the observer, and if possible noticeable in controlled conditions. While it’s true that some discoveries (like some animal species) have started as hearsay, a typical scientist will need more before they go on a wild goose chase for the Yeti;
Our current scientific theories (with “theory” used in its scientific meaning, which is “a
well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method and repeatedly tested and confirmed through observation and experimentation”, i.e. quite the opposite of a hunch or hypothesis) are extremely successful and have large amounts of data backing them up. This is especially true of General Relativity, Quantum Field Theory, and the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. These theories have been repeatedly tested and found correct, sometimes down to 10 figures or more after the decimal, both through observation and experimentation. If you want to claim that one of these theories is wrong, the quality of the evidence you are going to have to give will have to match the quality of the evidence in favour of these theories. And if the only evidence against them is your misguided ideas about how the world should be, whether due to religious belief or plain ignorance, don’t expect scientists to have a lot of patience listening to you;
While scientists value imagination, they are careful with trying to extrapolate too far from what is already known, and wild speculation is frowned upon, as it’s far too easy to fool oneself into expecting things that won’t happen. Scientific research is like walking in the dark: you make small steps and try to feel your way around. You don’t make long jumps and hope not to hit a wall or fall into a hole. Unless you have good reason, based on previous knowledge (like moving in an area you already know), to know that the direction you’re going is the right one.
So to take again the examples shown by the previous rebloggers, a scientist will never say: “this planet cant have aliens on it because there’s no water! the atmosphere is wrong! theres not enough heat to sustain life!“. At most, they will say: “This planet cannot support life as we know it (i.e. carbon-based water-dependent life)“, and that’s a perfectly correct statement. Could it support other types of life? Who knows? So far, we haven’t observed any other type of life, so it’s impossible to actually answer the question without a fair amount of speculation, and as I wrote, scientists prefer to leave speculation to others.
As for the “it’s impossible, it shouldn’t exist, it breaks the laws of physics“, it’s actually laughable that anyone could think a scientist would ever say that! Maybe in a bad Hollywood movie, but in real life? In real life, cosmologists and particle physicists are actually eager to observe stuff that cannot be explained by their current theories. General Relativity and Quantum Field Theory (and in particular the Standard Model) are extremely successful, but also desperately incomplete (and in the case of the Standard Model, rather inelegant), and actually completely incompatible with each other. Which is a shame, as some of the things we’d like to know depend on having a theory to bridge the two. That’s why scientists are eager to discover something that cannot appropriately be explained by these two theories. Such a crack, as I wrote above, would provide hints as to a better way to describe the universe.
So stop propagating this false image of the scientist as a kind of high priest that thinks they hold the truth in their hands and shout down any kind of alternative as heresy. That’s not how scientists are, that’s not how science works, and it reflects more on your own lack of understanding of science than on any imaginary scientist’s failings.
This
Also, scientists are very much aware that life can exist beyond our planet. There’s an entire field of study about that very concept–Astrobiology. Panspermia, one of the biggest scientific theories explaining life on earth *entirely* hinges on life existing beyond earth. Scientists saying something isn’t fully substantiated by scientific study is not the same as scientists saying something is impossible and screw anyone saying otherwise
me: I’m mentally ill and struggling to get the energy to do tasks that are necessary for my everyday life
a neurotypical: having you considering taking on several time consuming and tiring hobbies, such as running, getting up at 5am to do yoga, and making green smoothies with 20 ingredients every day
You know what, I’m kind of sick of this “I can’t do anything to help myself” mentality.
I have/had crippling general anxiety and depression. I was in a permanent state of being suicidal and jumping from mundane annoyances to wanting to die pretty frequently. I too was in a shitty, terrible place due to my mental illnesses.
And then one day I was like “I need to change this. I need to change all of this” and I went and made a therapy appointment. 1) Talk therapy works if you find a person you jive with. I know it’s not as accessible for everyone as it was for me (and hint, if you’re a college student, you most likely have access to it via your tuition), but 2) Meditation helps? Like a lot? Like that’s the thing I do when I feel myself slipping into thought cycles I know only lead to hating myself. It’s been shown time and time again that cosmopolitan medicine in the Western world is NOT effective at dealing with mental illness.
Guess where Meditation didn’t come from? And may I ask if you’ve even tried these things before you knocked them as “neurotypical” expectations? You don’t have to start off meditating 30 mins a day, just sit down, close your eyes, and take a few deep breaths for like a minute even and let yourself be still.
You want to “other” yourself from “neurotypical” people because it’s a fad? Fine. Live with your mental illness like a badge. I’m trying to conquer mine, so get out of my way and stop perpetuating the stereotypes that people with mental illness are doing it for attention.
^Yep. I’m not going to feel sorry for myself due to not being neurotypical. In fact, wallowing in my own sorrow feels like shit, and I NEED to do stuff and be active to cope.
If your character’s identity revolves around one trait, you’re probably writing a very shitty character.
If you strip a character of all of their identity just to headcanon them as something, that is pretty fetishizing and nasty.
Yeah yeah having LGBT, POC, characters and representation is all nice and dandy but remember they are supposed to be characters not a superficial trait because you want “representation” (which if being trans, poc, etc. is their only defining trait, that’s tokenism)
this is quite a long and strawmanny way of saying that lgbt people are fetishizing themselves for hcing characters as themselves lol. next!
also
“rainbow loli of justice”
Also not nice how op implies that poc are being racist against themselves. Op better not be a white.
Does OP even know what tokenism means lol???????
also like assuming that being trans or black or autistic is actually any character’s only defining trait is kinda shitty bc like literally when has a trans person ever made a trans character who had zero other characteristics
as if straight white is the default and those characters are just *full* of interesting traits
mfw all of you miss the entire point. So lemme try to spell this out for you in the most simplistic of ways.
and since @tramatizedoffical you care so much, I’m actually black. Anyways, to the point.
The point is that if you have literally nothing else interesting about you character outside of one trait, you wrote a shitty character. If you take away that trait, and you no longer have a character, you made a shitty character.
I never assumed that they would only ever be used as the only trait, I’ve seen and know of plenty of interesting LGBT, POC, and minority characters. On the flip side, I know of many uninteresting, and ultimately shitty LGBT, POC, and minority characters.
In one of my classes, someone asked if I could take a look at their character whom was trans. Whether they thought I was trans or not idk, idc, or maybe they just wanted to talk to someone about their character. Anyways. They proceeded to tell me about their character– everything about the character revolved around the fact that they were trans. Their hobbies, interests, friends, etc. it was all “because they’re trans.”. The result? A boring character. The character didn’t have a motivation, personality, etc. that didn’t revolve around how trans they were. It was shoved in your face, and you were constantly reminded of it to the point that during this, I actually had to ask “What else about them other than that they’re trans?”
“they’re black!” <– They’re response when I actually asked. Their character was fully uninteresting. Not because they’re black and trans, but because the entire character hinged on those traits alone.
I myself have been on the flipside of this. After creating well over 10 pages of world lore, family trees, fleshing out all of the characters as much as possible, etc. I showed it to a classmate ‘cause they were curious to what I was working on and I asked what they thought, their response was akin to liking my world and character designs because they were POC. Nothing about the characters being interesting, nothing about the world or government, etc. Just that they liked the world and designs because they were POC. As someone who wants to go into character creation for a living that means one of two things.
1. I made shitty characters who didn’t have traits outside of being POC
2. That person ignored everything else about my world and characters despite the amount of effort and research I had put into it.
Naturally, after concluding that it was the second reason after a few more characters, and it was completely insulting. If I made my characters all white, and the person no longer liked the world or anything about my characters, then they never held any genuine interest to begin with.
I never “Implied” anything about the creator of the characters being LGBT, POC, etc. because literally, anyone is capable of doing the above. It was literally a general post, aimed at anyone interested in or wanting to make characters. If you only like a character because they’re LGBT, POC, etc. then it is pretty fetishizing because you’ve either stripped away or ignored any of their other traits, accomplishments, etc. its also an insult to the creator if they made a genuinely interesting and likable character with those traits.
Tl;dr: Stop making shitty characters that literally hinge their entire being on nothing else but being POC, a minority, LGBT, etc. and if you were to remove that trait, they’re completely flat, dull, and boring.
So many people on tumblr complain about having no friends but then they reblog shit like
“If your friend doesn’t respond to your every text immediately they are not your friend”
and “A true friend would never value themselves over your sanity. Friends who ‘need space’ away from your mental health issue are TO X I C”
and “if someone doesn’t drop everything to help you when you’re in need, congrats, you just found out who your fake friend is”
and it’s like…this is why.
You had friends and then shat on them with your fucked up abusive standards.
congratulations on shutting down every mentally ill person who NEEDS this kind of attention to survive and telling us we dont deserve friends for the way our brains fuck us up and tell us that if they dont do just the smallest things they hate us and wantus to die and dont want to be our friends
i hate nts
You’re friends world doesn’t revolve around you. Honestly your response is one of the most selfish things I’ve read.
You need to realize that your mental illness can be toxic and harmful to your friends, that it can be controlling and poisonous. That your friends world doesn’t just revolve around you.
I had a friend like that once. She had her mental instabilities and she suffered from depression and things like that and so she came to me because I was her friend. I tried to be THAT friend. Whenever she would text or call me, I would be there to to talk to her, to give her advice no matter how busy i was, and i was BUSY. I genuinely wanted to help her through her problems and i felt guilty for wanting to put my academics over her. But in school she would often complain that she had absolutely no friends, as if I didn’t exist. I tried to understand though, that sometimes it may FEEL like you don’t have anyone I suppose, so I stuck with her so she wouldn’t feel alone. I wish I saw it then, but it was just tip of the iceberg. She was manipulating me. She would tell me secrets, and make me promise to never tell another soul. And I didn’t, cause I cared. Come to find out she went and told the whole school herself, saying the same thing to each person “promise not to tell anyone, you’re the only one I can trust”. I would tell her to go seek professional help because she was hurting herself and getting into all sorts of trouble. But she would say the same thing “I can’t, you’re the only one I can trust.” Almost every night we would talk over Facebook and she would constantly reaffirm our friendship, saying “you’re my friend, right?” almost the same way, every day, and I would always say the same thing “yes”. This went on for about 2 years. It got to the point that I would hide my online status on facebook when I saw that she was online. I was going through hardships of my own and when I would go to her about it, she would quickly dismiss it and go on about HER problems. She would come to me with her problems, I would tell her how to solve them, she would totally disregard everything I told her and get herself into trouble again, and come crying to me for the same answers to the same problems and repeat the cycle over and over again. I would be up at midnight writing college essays, filling out college applications, looking for scholarships, and she would call me complaining about the same problems that I had given her the solutions to countless times. But I would drop everything and go through the whole spiel again, because I tried to be THAT friend. The friend that those people want. The one that would put their whole life on halt for their friends. And it did a toll on me, both physically and mentally. I got no sleep or mental rest because I was basically juggling her problems, on top of my own, as well as school preparing for college. Every time she sensed I was sort of backing out she would bring up the fact that she would kill herself or that I was the one and only friend she had (which wasn’t true). It was my mom who finally told me to distance myself from her, because she could see how badly this kind of relationship was affecting me, and she had been in a similar one herself, so she recognized the signs. My dad, a Star Trek fan, called people like that Klingons because they literally cling on to you and feed off of the attention you give them. I’m not knocking people with mental disabilities or depression or anything like that, because they are serious. But don’t treat your friends like your 24/7 therapists or psychiatrists. We cannot put our whole lives on hold, jeopardize our future for you. Even therapists tell their patients “no I can’t speak with you today” or “you have to schedule an appointment, you can’t just call whenever you want”. And it’s not to be selfish. I thought it was selfish of me to prioritize my health or education over my friend who needed my help. But I realized, I’m not a therapist, and I have to look out for myself too.
Corporate Media Has Complete Collapse Over Hillary [x]
[Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp]
June 10, 2016:
“The corporate media keeps telling us to now celebrate
this grand moment in history. Okay. First, I only need to celebrate if the
candidate is a good person, who stands for… Oh. I don’t know… anything! Hey! Here’s
the first female corporate election fraud Presidential nominee! Brought to you
by the good people of Goldman Sachs and Monsanto! Ah, well. Break out the champagne!
Secondly, she’s not the first woman to be a
Presidential nominee. Jill Stein was the nominee, for the Green Party, just
last election cycle and there are many others! So yeah, “Anybody who isn’t
celebrating Hillary is a misogynist.” Meanwhile, you’re bulldozing over
history, to knock other women out of the way.
Sorry ladies, you weren’t on a corporatist party platform, so you don’t count! Out of the way, Victoria Woodhull,
who was a presidential nominee in 1872. You mean nothing, in your sepia photos.
You’re no Hillary!” – Lee Camp
PiraticOctopus 