@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

passenger

@[email protected]

Trans rights are human rights. None are free until all are free. The existence of billionaires is a failure of society. Under the streets, the beach.

🇿🇦🇳🇿 but a long way from a patriot.

Climate pessimist. Revolution optimist. Lifelong pacifist but grappling with it recently. Data engineer by trade.

I try not to hornypost / kinkpost but I don't mind if you do.

Terfs, nazis, cops and landlords will be blocked.

If you want to follow me, be warned: I boost a lot of stuff.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

LadyDragonfly, to random
@LadyDragonfly@universeodon.com avatar

What's your favorite opening line of any book? I'll go first.

"This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it."

passenger,
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

Snitch-tagging @bookstodon because they might want to see this.

samlitzinger, to random
@samlitzinger@journa.host avatar

“Young voters are unenthusiastic about Biden…”

Dear Young Voters:

I’m sorry you’re unenthusiastic about Biden. I’m not his biggest fan, but the 2024 election will be a choice between a guy who’s not ideal and one who wants a dictatorship.

You could vote for Trump over Biden (or not vote at all, which helps Trump), but if you vote for a dictator, that’s your last vote that will matter.

Yours,
Sam

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/16/biden-trump-young-voters-2024-election/

passenger,
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

@killallnerds @samlitzinger

Yeah, this.

To say "vote for me and let me do whatever I want or else democracy ends" isn't a platform, it's a hostage-taker's demand.

If America is in a situation where voting for a man who loves cops and loves oil drilling is the only choice that young people who hate both have, then democracy already ended.

passenger, to bookstodon
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

@bookstodon

I need to buy a gift for a family-of-friend. I am informed that they really like mystery stories, especially in historical settings, but are not fond of SFF.

I assume this means they have already read the obvious candidates, the Cadfaels and the like, or if they haven't then that's a conscious choice on their part which means I shouldn't buy them one of those.

What's a non-SFF mystery story you've enjoyed recently? Recommend me a book please!

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

What songs do you think are too good for their subject matter, like a song for an ad that's actually good, or a children's show theme song that slaps, ect?

passenger,
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

@RickiTarr

The entire soundtrack to the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie, especially the song "Tech Syndrome" by The Immortals.

18+ mekkaokereke, to random
@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io avatar

During BLM protests, the major news networks kept framing upcoming BLM protests as dangerous for white people. "The Black people are coming to your town!" even though many of (most of!) the BLM marchers were white?🤔

Now I'm seeing a similar dynamic with Gaza ceasefire protest coverage. But it's getting harder to ignore the fact that many (admittedly not most) of the folks asking for human rights to be respected, are Jewish and/or Israeli. ♥️👍🏿

18+ passenger,
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

@JoBlakely @raphaelmorgan @mekkaokereke

I was marching in the huge London march yesterday. I was with the Jewish bloc, ready to help protect them if there was trouble. The main thing they got was hundreds of Muslims coming up to them to thank them for coming out, and to share experiences of being marginalised.

The one person who caused trouble was White, a journalist who kept trying to provoke them by asking if they supported Hamas or Israel's right to defend itself.

Tinido, to bookstodon German
@Tinido@chaos.social avatar

Emily Wilson, who translated the Odyssey to apoplectic rages of the manosphere from Academia to Podcastia, has a beautiful portrait in the New Yorker.
@bookstodon
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/09/18/emily-wilson-profile

passenger,
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

@Tinido @Jantar @bookstodon

Shout out to the one guy who complained that she was putting a gay subtext into a story where it wasn't intended.

I'm just an illiterate science guy and even I facepalmed at that one.

seth73, to bookstodon German
@seth73@berlin.social avatar

@bookstodon
Usually i don't do advertising for free, but due to my love for the "Shadowrun" universe, i just wanted to tell everyone interested that there is a big 42 books bundle of (english written) Stories over at humblebundle. ATM the price for the whole bundle is less than 20 ($ € etc)
The Books come in epub and mobi format and are downloadable without any hassle or further need for any software or anything.

passenger,
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

@seth73 @bookstodon

So what you're saying is that we don't need a decker for this job?

I don't like it. It feels like a honey pot.

rabbit_fighter, to bookstodon
@rabbit_fighter@mastodon.world avatar

@bookstodon I'm looking for book recommendations for an 11yo who reads at a much more advanced level. He likes sci-fi. He has read the Hitchhiker's Guide series and loved them. I think he would enjoy some more 'hard' sci-fi as well. He needs something challenging but without subject matter that is too mature. Thanks for any help!

passenger,
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

@icastico @aprilfollies @RainbowFrog @rabbit_fighter @bookstodon

Not to mention that the Ender's Game novels are pretty, well, fashy. Several times I've been told by former fascists that those novels were a part of their early slide into having bad politics.

He'll probably have to read them at some point, and they are worth reading, but maybe wait until he has better critical skills?

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Seeing their attempts at indoctrination fail to take hold the indoctrinated can only imagine they have been stymied by some equal and opposite form of indoctrination. That we might be sincere about creating the space for each young person to find their own way, to make up their own mind is impossible from their perspective.

That we wait on the outcomes of experiments and study to determine what is best? Just a lie.

passenger,
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

@bertwells @squig @futurebird @TruthSandwich

Pssst, you're talking to someone whose source for information about Sparta isn't Plutarch or Herodotus but Frank Miller.

Whatever he learned at school with all that bullying, it certainly wasn't historical scholarship.

andreaslindholm, to bookstodon Swedish
@andreaslindholm@mastodon.nu avatar

I can never praise the genius of Stanislaw Lem.

In this vision of the future the powers that be use mind-controlling drugs (not "tech") to hide the fact that there is no real technological progress and that the world is dying. @bookstodon

passenger,
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

@andreaslindholm @bookstodon

Surely "I can never praise the genius of Stanislaw Lem enough"?

passenger, to bookstodon
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

@bookstodon @danmcquillan @ChrisMayLA6

Happy birthday to me! Amongst other very kind gifts, I got a little nonfiction reading that I'm really looking forward to.

camilla_hoel, to bookstodon
@camilla_hoel@hcommons.social avatar

O have fallen into a hole of Patrick O’Brian’s making (currently at The Surgeon’s Mate) and greatly enjoying it. I had believed the branding and thought these were Manly Men’s books, no girls or feelings allowed. Now considering making these mandatory reading for all boys when I take over the world. @bookstodon

passenger,
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

@camilla_hoel @bookstodon

These are so good, especially the later ones where he's grappling with his age.

haikushack, to poetry
@haikushack@thecanadian.social avatar

I needed to publish this rant. I'm really tired of the way we treat poets in our freebie culture.

https://vocal.media/writers/poetry-in-our-freebie-culture

@poetry @bookstodon

passenger,
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

@haikushack @poetry @bookstodon

Thank you for writing this. I went from ignorant to extremely sad as a result of reading it. I love poetry and it's awful to see it treated like this.

Behindthepages, to bookstodon
@Behindthepages@nerdculture.de avatar

There's something so satisfying about seeing how much you've read each time you pick up a physical book. Especially when it's 500+ pages. @bookstodon

passenger,
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

@ajswritesthings @bookstodon @Behindthepages

That bit where you start anxiously looking at how many pages are left.

"We've only got half a centimetre of book left. I hope they manage to confess their love in time!"

passenger,
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

@neenamaiya @Behindthepages @bookstodon

Such a good book!

kimlockhartga, to bookstodon
@kimlockhartga@beige.party avatar

According to the book I'm reading:

"They say human brains have the storage capacity to hold everything on the internet, the equivalent of 4.7 billion books."

So, you don't have to worry! Unless you achieve immortality, no matter how many fun facts you learn, or books you read, your brain will never run out of disk space.

@bookstodon

passenger,
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

@Narayoni @kimlockhartga @bookstodon

If I forget the book, that just means I can read it again.

(I have done this more than once.)

passenger,
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

@Narayoni @kimlockhartga @bookstodon

I'm looking forward to rereading Life A User's Manual. I read it about once a decade and each time it's a new book and I only remember half of it.

18+ passenger, to bookstodon
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

@Rhube @mybarkingdogs @river @bookstodon

(Please ignore what I said and focus on what @rhube is saying, she's far more knowledgeable than I am.)

18+ passenger, to bookstodon
@passenger@kolektiva.social avatar

@mybarkingdogs @bookstodon

My obvious go-to would be the Lovecraftian tradition, which is also very racist in places (especially Lovecraft himself) but has a long history of telling mystery and investigative stories that don't involve the police.

Many stories in the Lovecraftian tradition are also sceptical of power, because their metaphor for power is not "heroic cop protecting us" but "evil corrupt cultist who'll summon a monster to kill you if you dare meddle in their schemes," and so it becomes a tale of the weak investigating the strong.

This isn't to say that the Lovecraftian tradition is always free of copaganda, and definitely not to say that it doesn't have problems of its own, of course.

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