Amidst accumulating governmental rot in Western society, the slow but steady spoolup of fascism, and a culture of indifference to mass death, people in the 1920s invented "absurdism" (the flip-face of existentialism) as an artistic weapon and way of describing reality in a world that resisted truth.

One of the many facets of why everything sucks so much these days is so much of everything we do, the online spaces we exist, are completely opaque black boxes that can arbitrarily punish you and never have to actually explain why. Steam, Youtube, Bluesky itself, everything works this way now

this is still true.

JavaScript: neither Java nor generally used for scripts C#: not C, not musical wasm: Not assembly, used in contexts other than web browsers Scala: not especially scalable, though I'll grant that it is a language Rust: runs on silicon, not iron(III) oxide Programmers are such liars smh

"The OCC identified instances where at least one bank imposed restrictions on certain industry sectors because they engaged in “activities that, while not illegal, are contrary to [the bank’s] values.” Sectors subjected to restricted access included ... adult entertainment"

Over the past few years, FSC raised alarms in Washington about debanking of our industry. Thousands of you joined us to file complaints. Finally, a new government report has affirmed it: major banks wrongly discriminated against adult businesses. Our work is paying off. Now, we fight for a fix.

bluesky stop randomly fucking signing out on web challenge: impossible

Just heard disappointing news that @warren.senate.gov will co-sponsor the Kids Online Safety Act again despite overwhelming opposition from LGBTQ, human rights, abortion rights, and racial justice groups. This is a horrific betrayal of her constituents, particularly trans youth and their families.

(@shweetnlow.bsky.social)

Requiring temporary visitors to surrender five years of social media to the U.S. sends the message that the American commitment to free speech is pretense. This simply is not the behavior of a country confident in its freedoms. It's a threat to free speech around the world and must be opposed.

there's a Metro VR game? soon as steam frame exists I should play that

please purchase abiotic factor, it's my GOTY 2025, personal recommendation, if the price drops in the winter sale pick this shit up IMMEDIATELY store.steampowered.com/app/427410/A...

Valve has now rejected my complaint, confirming that "I don't like muslims" is a valid reason to leave a negative review on a game on Steam This is where we're at now.

Pretty much unforgivable.

Jesus Christ, this age verification thing is going to be the most useless and annoying thing we’ve ever done to undermine privacy and democracy in the history of the world. I vote that all in favor are banned from the internet.

there is so much snow here woag

bluesky only shows the punycode version of domain name handles? thats kinda shitty for the non-english world innit?

why is rossman the only one with a sizable audience talking about flock cameras on YT

need

girls when you leave them alone for 10 seconds:

I finally have a blog platform I like, and I'm going to use it to finish posts I started eons ago. If you like 3800 word essays about gender and bigotry and weird rationalist assholes, then you're in luck. alpha.weaver.sh/did:plc:yfvw...

related alpha.weaver.sh/did:plc:yfvw...

my signal msgs once again demonstrating signal, like all of the internet, is for securely exchanging lewds n nudes

a casual mutually sexual fucking environment would fix me, i think

I’M SNOWED IN AND THREE BEERS IN SO LET ME JUST SAY EAT DIRT YOU MAGA SCUMBAGGGSSSS

they should invent rizz for autistics

The Nordic Model may make politicians feel righteous, but it leaves sex workers poorer, less safe, and more marginalized. Ending demand won’t end sex work—but ending criminalization just might end the cycle of harm. www.swopbehindbars.org/post/receipt...

Criminal records, especially those tied to survival economies, must be dismantled. We need to listen to sex workers themselves. Overwhelmingly, workers across the globe have called for full decriminalization—a model supported by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, UNAIDS, and the WHO.

But the evidence is clear. In Sweden, where “end demand” laws were first introduced in 1999, sex work has not decreased. What has increased is stigma, police surveillance, and violence against workers. This makes the work riskier and makes it harder for outreach organizations to provide support.

Everywhere this model has been implemented—from Sweden to Ireland to France—it failed to reduce sex work or trafficking. Instead, these laws have made the work more dangerous, pushed workers further underground, and ignored structural issues that drive people into the sex trade in the first place.

“End demand” laws—often marketed under name of the Nordic Model—are frequently touted as a one-size-fits-all solution The logic sounds straightforward: if you punish clients who purchase sexual services, the industry will collapse, exploitation will end. But decades of evidence tell us otherwise.

The Nordic model also requires sex workers to be victims of constant police presence and surveillance because they interact directly with "criminals" aka clients. The Nordic model is a lot of things, but a full decriminalization model isn't one of them. 4/4

The Nordic model also summons sex workers to court to testify against their clients, even if the sex worker doesn't have an issue with the client in question. But since the client is a "criminal" sex workers are expected to out themselves and testify 3/x

Being evicted because landlords will be charged with living off the proceeds of prostitution if they rent to outed sex workers. Having their partners or adult children evicted or possibly jailed for living off the proceeds of prostitution Being deported if they're immigrants 2/x

1. The fact you keep saying prostitutes instead of sex workers is a huge tell 2. Sex workers are still criminalized and penalized in various ways under the Nordic model. Some of the key ways- Being jailed for adjacent crimes, such as brothel keeping, because they work with other sex workers. 1/x

This is the Nordic Model and it's been shown to not work. Criminalizing clients encourages workers to perform unsafe practices to avoid their client base being arrested, & the goal is still to weaken sex workers as a whole.

Decriminalization of sex work does not equal Decriminalization of sex trafficking. That's like arguing that legalization of Marijuana also makes it legal to coerce someone into smuggling drugs. Trafficking is trafficking Sex work is sex work.

when people who know absolutely nothing about your life decide what’s best for you. It’s always someone in a cardigan, clutching a latte, confidently saying, “This will empower them.” Empower us? Lady, I just want to get paid without someone calling the cops! 🧵8/14

They’ll tell you it’s all about “protecting women.” Yeah, because nothing screams “protection” like scaring off decent clients and leaving sex workers to deal with the desperate creeps who don’t care about getting caught. Brilliant. Now we’re not just working—we’re auditioning for the 🧵5/14

next episode of Law & Order: SVU. But hey, they’re not criminalizing sex workers, right? No, no, they’d never do that. Instead, they just criminalize every single thing around the work until it’s so dangerous and exhausting you have no choice but to quit or die trying. 🧵6/14

don’t need rent money or groceries. It’s flawless logic—if you’ve never spoken to an actual sex worker or, you know, been alive. And of course, this plan was cooked up by the real experts on sex work: politicians, college professors, and a handful of pearl-clutching activists who think all 🧵3/14

Progress!” Genius, right? It’s like saying, “We didn’t outlaw restaurants, we just made it illegal to order food. Enjoy the empowerment.” The big idea here is that if you make it impossible for people to pay for sex, sex workers will just… poof! disappear into a magical world where they 🧵2/14

The Nordic Model: Saving Sex Workers One Completely Pointless Law at a Time So, here’s the Nordic Model in a nutshell “We’re not going to punish you, the sex worker—oh no, we’re enlightened! We’re just going to punish the people paying you so you can’t make a living. See? 🧵1/14

Excellent summary of the Nordic model

yiiikes, TL. Yikes.

a few months ago i built a game out of the wikimedia dataset to see how good i was at identifying safe mushrooms. i mostly learned that i should not forage for mushrooms lol mushdle.com if you want to play (the dataset is pretty small)

Just a quiet, sad little PSA. If someone is estranged from their parents, please please don’t give them the ‘but they’re your mum/ dad’ They were their mum / dad when they did the worst imaginable things to their own kids. It’s not up to the children to make it ok. It’s up to them to live well.

yooo www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYRJ...

there's no problem you can read your way out of that you can't also read your way into. it's a communication method not a holy virtue