The OED actually includes the definition of literally as being what used to be the opposite of its definition nowadays, so I think that it does count as an auto-antonym (a word that means both itself, and the opposite of itself)
When people use the word "nature" in this context, it evokes (intentionally or otherwise) the dichotomy of nature vs. nurture, where nature tends to refer to innate traits that would exist regardless of upbringing or social experiences. From that lens, most social behaviours in animals would be better understood as being a result of "nurture". An amusing example from my own life is that I used to have a dog that had spent its entire life around cats after being found as an extremely young puppy. The sounds he made when begging for attention were like nothing I had ever heard from a dog before, because he was trying to emulate the cat sounds.
I get why you're confused though, because the line between nature and nurture is fuzzy at best. Indeed, this is why the scientific consensus on the matter is that rather than "nature vs. nurture", it's better to think of it as "nature via nurture", where nature and nurture are constantly in dialogue with each other, and can't really exist separate from each other. An example of "nature via nurture" might be if someone was genetically predisposed to be extremely tall, but they experienced significant malnourishment throughout their life — they probably wouldn't end up being tall
Two things can be true at once, and fighting for a just world means fighting battles on many fronts. If someone is outraged at the awful dehumanisation discussed in the article, then I would imagine that they'd be more likely to be receptive to a minor, polite correction in language. Better for that conversation to happen in a thread like this than in a more public context.
It's less about people knowing about the violence (and sexual violence especially) that happens in prisons, but rather there is a collective tacit acknowledgement that these things are okay — that the violence is effectively just part of the punishment of prison.
Which is a pretty fucked up stance, but because it's the default, unspoken and unchallenged assumption, then of course we're not going to hear about this stuff on the news.
Pentiment surprised me by being one of my favourite games I have played in years. There have no doubt been better, or more engaging, or more thought provoking games that I have played, but I struggle to think of many with as much care woven throughout it.
It made total sense to me when I later learned that Pentiment was Josh Sawyer's pet project, one that he had been hoping to make for years. Apparently he basically said "let me make this game, or I walk", and because of how Xbox gamepass affected funding stuff, he was allowed to make this cute, quirky game. Apparently they even had an on-call historian to ensure maximum authenticity.
They refuse to make repairs, frequently raise the rent, and would frequently do a "no fault eviction" when they want to raise the rent higher than what they're likely to wring out of you. I had a landlord who engaged in illegal harassment to try to get me out of the apartment after a no-fault eviction where I didn't leave (due to being too ill to) because he didn't want to get a court order to make me leave (but if I left without him having gotten a court order, I'd have been deemed as having chosen to make myself homeless, so I'd be ineligible for a lot of homelessness support).
There were tenants rights laws before this, but it was disconcertingly common to see landlords blatantly violating them and tenants struggling to defend their rights
I've had it happen a few times. I've had a surprisingly high rate of success from showing compassion to someone who has left an excessively abrasive comment. Even times when the ensuing conversation hasn't changed someone's mind, I'm always pretty jazzed to be able to have a civil conversation with someone.
When I was a depressed and extremely suicidal teenager, I decided that if nothing had improved for me by the time I was 20, then I'd kill myself then. When I set that time limit, I already had a couple of failed attempts under my belt (unbeknownst to my family), and desperately wanted to die. However, I felt guilty for the pain that would cause, which is why the attempts only happened when I reached a crisis point.
I had read suicide support guidance that advised to try and put distance between yourself and the suicidal feelings, because even just a day or two can help to stabilise the situation. Well my response was to take this logic and apply it to an extreme level, with significant spite attached. My logic was that if indeed things were just as hopeless when I was 20, I would feel justified in killing myself, and fuck anyone who would begrudge me my escape at that point. I didn't require things to be better-better by the time I was 20, I just needed something to change to show that it was still worth fighting.
Well, here I am, almost 10 years later, and I'm still alive. still struggle with suicidal ideation on a regular basis, and I suspect I will always have to keep an eye on my mental health. However, nowadays, when I get low, I don't actively want to die like I used to. Instead, it's usually a case of "I don't want to die, but I know I can't live like this".
Ironically, I think that planning my death saved my life. There were countless times over my late teens where I would've been at risk of making another attempt on my life, but instead would self soothe by counting down how much time I had left to ensure. It did mean that my early 20s were a bit confusing, as I was living a life that I had planned without ever expecting that I'd get that far. And I still sort of feel like these past 10 years have been a massive bonus level that I'm half expecting to be swept away from me at any moment, but I'm still here.
There are other things I could have replied to this question with, but nothing will trump my surprise at still being alive (and wanting to be)
Maybe there's just nowhere easy to stow his walking stick, or he's anticipating using it some time soon.
I'm an ambulatory wheelchair user, which means that sometimes I use a wheelchair, sometimes a wheeled walker thing, and sometimes a walking stick. My wheelchair didn't have a convenient place to stow my walking stick until I made a dedicated holster thing for it. There is a pocket at the back of my wheelchair, and various places I could stuff my stick temporarily, but it would inevitably end up falling out, falling over, or getting stuck in the spokes of the wheels.
The particular walking stick this guy is using doesn't look like it folds up like some do, so the storage problem seems especially relevant. Basic sticks like that one do allow you to set it to minimum height, collapsing it down a bit, but that's a faff to get it set to the right height again for when you need it.
Maybe this guy is approaching a security checkpoint or something, where he'll be expected to stand up to go through a scanner (airports and the line are capable of handling people who can't stand up from their wheelchair, of course, but things often go faster and easier if you can bear to stand up for a few moments, in my experience). Or maybe he's heading to the bathroom — whilst an accessible bathroom would typically have grab rails and the like, the stick might help him to push himself into a suitable position to be able to grab the rails and transfer onto the toilet.
What's more, anyone who uses a wheelchair who has some level of walking ability is generally advised to do stand and walk as much as they're able to, to reduce the risk of muscle atrophy, blood clots, pressure sores etc.. Even without something that necessarily requires him to stand, he may be trying to make it easier.
Finally, I'd just like to add that I think that in scenarios like this, the best response is to just shrug and go "well, I don't understand why he'd do that, but I guess there must be a reason"; Although in this post, you have been as respectful and non-judgemental as you plausibly can be, I think questions like this are coming from a place that is a bit judgemental.
Part of my motivation for this last bit is my own experience with a similar kind of curiosity, and I'm someone who is disabled myself, and immersed enough in disability activism that I know tons of disabled people, who all manage their disabilities in such varied ways that I keep finding new instances of how a person manages their condition that surprises or confuses me. A lot of things don't make sense to me, but without having direct lived experience of that person's particular circumstances, it's not for me to say what makes sense or not (and disabled people spend so much time having to justify themselves and their needs that they shouldn't have to fit into neat little boxes, even if it's just in someone's head).
This is a long way of saying that ultimately, despite my speculation, I don't know why he's using the walking stick like that, and even if I could ask, it wouldn't be appropriate to. I really don't want to come across like I'm telling you off here, especially as it does seem like we're on the same page re: not being assholes to disabled people. I just wanted to try to add some nuance to how we think and speak about disability
I'm a woman who calls myself a feminist because I don't want to let the transphobes known as TERFs (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists) have the word. (Potentially useful to highlight that whilst not all transphobes are TERFs, all TERFs are transphobes)
Some people are opposed to using the term TERF because of how misogynistic TERF ideology is — they don't just hurt trans women, but all women. Whilst I agree that their form of feminism is harmful to women everywhere and vehemently disagree with their views, there is no "Council of Feminists" who decree who gets to call themselves a feminist. So if I want to call myself a feminist, it means having to share the room with TERFs. I don't like that, but I'd rather do it than let them define what it means to be a feminist.
I got some for my partner because his sheets kept coming off and putting it back on was often something I would do because it was a task that took a disproportionately high level of mental energy for him. Before I got them, he was like "it's fine", and handwaving off the faff of putting the sheet back on, because it was just something he was used to. Afterwards he was like "oh my God, what a quality of life improvement from something so small"
A friend recently released an album that audacity, and basically nothing more (and he runs Linux). Apparently it's massively expanded and upgraded over the years
How long did it take you to do? I can't fathom how much work that must've taken
The OED actually includes the definition of literally as being what used to be the opposite of its definition nowadays, so I think that it does count as an auto-antonym (a word that means both itself, and the opposite of itself)
When people use the word "nature" in this context, it evokes (intentionally or otherwise) the dichotomy of nature vs. nurture, where nature tends to refer to innate traits that would exist regardless of upbringing or social experiences. From that lens, most social behaviours in animals would be better understood as being a result of "nurture". An amusing example from my own life is that I used to have a dog that had spent its entire life around cats after being found as an extremely young puppy. The sounds he made when begging for attention were like nothing I had ever heard from a dog before, because he was trying to emulate the cat sounds.
I get why you're confused though, because the line between nature and nurture is fuzzy at best. Indeed, this is why the scientific consensus on the matter is that rather than "nature vs. nurture", it's better to think of it as "nature via nurture", where nature and nurture are constantly in dialogue with each other, and can't really exist separate from each other. An example of "nature via nurture" might be if someone was genetically predisposed to be extremely tall, but they experienced significant malnourishment throughout their life — they probably wouldn't end up being tall
Two things can be true at once, and fighting for a just world means fighting battles on many fronts. If someone is outraged at the awful dehumanisation discussed in the article, then I would imagine that they'd be more likely to be receptive to a minor, polite correction in language. Better for that conversation to happen in a thread like this than in a more public context.
It's less about people knowing about the violence (and sexual violence especially) that happens in prisons, but rather there is a collective tacit acknowledgement that these things are okay — that the violence is effectively just part of the punishment of prison.
Which is a pretty fucked up stance, but because it's the default, unspoken and unchallenged assumption, then of course we're not going to hear about this stuff on the news.
I appreciate this tone indicator, because I initially read your comment as if you were taking a hostile stance, and that didn't make sense.
Pentiment surprised me by being one of my favourite games I have played in years. There have no doubt been better, or more engaging, or more thought provoking games that I have played, but I struggle to think of many with as much care woven throughout it.
It made total sense to me when I later learned that Pentiment was Josh Sawyer's pet project, one that he had been hoping to make for years. Apparently he basically said "let me make this game, or I walk", and because of how Xbox gamepass affected funding stuff, he was allowed to make this cute, quirky game. Apparently they even had an on-call historian to ensure maximum authenticity.
They refuse to make repairs, frequently raise the rent, and would frequently do a "no fault eviction" when they want to raise the rent higher than what they're likely to wring out of you. I had a landlord who engaged in illegal harassment to try to get me out of the apartment after a no-fault eviction where I didn't leave (due to being too ill to) because he didn't want to get a court order to make me leave (but if I left without him having gotten a court order, I'd have been deemed as having chosen to make myself homeless, so I'd be ineligible for a lot of homelessness support).
There were tenants rights laws before this, but it was disconcertingly common to see landlords blatantly violating them and tenants struggling to defend their rights
I've had it happen a few times. I've had a surprisingly high rate of success from showing compassion to someone who has left an excessively abrasive comment. Even times when the ensuing conversation hasn't changed someone's mind, I'm always pretty jazzed to be able to have a civil conversation with someone.
Hell yeah
I'm 29. I'd be surprised I'm still alive.
When I was a depressed and extremely suicidal teenager, I decided that if nothing had improved for me by the time I was 20, then I'd kill myself then. When I set that time limit, I already had a couple of failed attempts under my belt (unbeknownst to my family), and desperately wanted to die. However, I felt guilty for the pain that would cause, which is why the attempts only happened when I reached a crisis point.
I had read suicide support guidance that advised to try and put distance between yourself and the suicidal feelings, because even just a day or two can help to stabilise the situation. Well my response was to take this logic and apply it to an extreme level, with significant spite attached. My logic was that if indeed things were just as hopeless when I was 20, I would feel justified in killing myself, and fuck anyone who would begrudge me my escape at that point. I didn't require things to be better-better by the time I was 20, I just needed something to change to show that it was still worth fighting.
Well, here I am, almost 10 years later, and I'm still alive. still struggle with suicidal ideation on a regular basis, and I suspect I will always have to keep an eye on my mental health. However, nowadays, when I get low, I don't actively want to die like I used to. Instead, it's usually a case of "I don't want to die, but I know I can't live like this".
Ironically, I think that planning my death saved my life. There were countless times over my late teens where I would've been at risk of making another attempt on my life, but instead would self soothe by counting down how much time I had left to ensure. It did mean that my early 20s were a bit confusing, as I was living a life that I had planned without ever expecting that I'd get that far. And I still sort of feel like these past 10 years have been a massive bonus level that I'm half expecting to be swept away from me at any moment, but I'm still here.
There are other things I could have replied to this question with, but nothing will trump my surprise at still being alive (and wanting to be)
I like our plug sockets. Whenever I travel abroad, it makes me appreciate them all the more.
Maybe there's just nowhere easy to stow his walking stick, or he's anticipating using it some time soon.
I'm an ambulatory wheelchair user, which means that sometimes I use a wheelchair, sometimes a wheeled walker thing, and sometimes a walking stick. My wheelchair didn't have a convenient place to stow my walking stick until I made a dedicated holster thing for it. There is a pocket at the back of my wheelchair, and various places I could stuff my stick temporarily, but it would inevitably end up falling out, falling over, or getting stuck in the spokes of the wheels.
The particular walking stick this guy is using doesn't look like it folds up like some do, so the storage problem seems especially relevant. Basic sticks like that one do allow you to set it to minimum height, collapsing it down a bit, but that's a faff to get it set to the right height again for when you need it.
Maybe this guy is approaching a security checkpoint or something, where he'll be expected to stand up to go through a scanner (airports and the line are capable of handling people who can't stand up from their wheelchair, of course, but things often go faster and easier if you can bear to stand up for a few moments, in my experience). Or maybe he's heading to the bathroom — whilst an accessible bathroom would typically have grab rails and the like, the stick might help him to push himself into a suitable position to be able to grab the rails and transfer onto the toilet.
What's more, anyone who uses a wheelchair who has some level of walking ability is generally advised to do stand and walk as much as they're able to, to reduce the risk of muscle atrophy, blood clots, pressure sores etc.. Even without something that necessarily requires him to stand, he may be trying to make it easier.
Finally, I'd just like to add that I think that in scenarios like this, the best response is to just shrug and go "well, I don't understand why he'd do that, but I guess there must be a reason"; Although in this post, you have been as respectful and non-judgemental as you plausibly can be, I think questions like this are coming from a place that is a bit judgemental.
Part of my motivation for this last bit is my own experience with a similar kind of curiosity, and I'm someone who is disabled myself, and immersed enough in disability activism that I know tons of disabled people, who all manage their disabilities in such varied ways that I keep finding new instances of how a person manages their condition that surprises or confuses me. A lot of things don't make sense to me, but without having direct lived experience of that person's particular circumstances, it's not for me to say what makes sense or not (and disabled people spend so much time having to justify themselves and their needs that they shouldn't have to fit into neat little boxes, even if it's just in someone's head).
This is a long way of saying that ultimately, despite my speculation, I don't know why he's using the walking stick like that, and even if I could ask, it wouldn't be appropriate to. I really don't want to come across like I'm telling you off here, especially as it does seem like we're on the same page re: not being assholes to disabled people. I just wanted to try to add some nuance to how we think and speak about disability
I'm a woman who calls myself a feminist because I don't want to let the transphobes known as TERFs (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists) have the word. (Potentially useful to highlight that whilst not all transphobes are TERFs, all TERFs are transphobes)
Some people are opposed to using the term TERF because of how misogynistic TERF ideology is — they don't just hurt trans women, but all women. Whilst I agree that their form of feminism is harmful to women everywhere and vehemently disagree with their views, there is no "Council of Feminists" who decree who gets to call themselves a feminist. So if I want to call myself a feminist, it means having to share the room with TERFs. I don't like that, but I'd rather do it than let them define what it means to be a feminist.
I mean, I'd be more inclined to join a cult if I were working 90 hour work weeks. Sleep deprivation is one of the tactics they use, after all
Oh hell yeah, fried 𝔾𝔼𝕆𝕄𝔼𝕋ℝ𝕐, my favourite!
I got some for my partner because his sheets kept coming off and putting it back on was often something I would do because it was a task that took a disproportionately high level of mental energy for him. Before I got them, he was like "it's fine", and handwaving off the faff of putting the sheet back on, because it was just something he was used to. Afterwards he was like "oh my God, what a quality of life improvement from something so small"
"choice"
I've been using Fennec for a long time, and I'm very happy with it
A friend recently released an album that audacity, and basically nothing more (and he runs Linux). Apparently it's massively expanded and upgraded over the years