"Am I Intersex?"

Everything is like “QUEER history” and “List of QUEER young adult books” or “Top 10 QUEER movies” and queer this and queer that and for the love of god please just say LGBT.

I don't know how people came to think that "the banality of evil" means "evil people are people too".

That's also true but it's not what the banality of evil means.

The term was coined by Hannah Arendt in her report on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the "final solution" in the Holocaust.

It describes the way in which the Nazis at large and Eichmann in particular have turned the horrendous act of mass murder into just another job, disconnecting themselves morally and emotionally from their actions.

Before the death camps and gas chambers, Nazi soldiers simply shot Jews into mass graves by the hundreds of thousands. It was a lot cheaper and faster, but it caused great psychological distress for the murderers who pulled the trigger.

The leadership's solution was a massively upscaled version of the "gas vans" they used to mass murder hundreds of thousands of Germans with disabilities and mental health issues.

Shooting bound civilians in point blank range over and over is something you can't just pretend you're not doing or is no big deal. But if you're just the guy who sorts people into groups. Or just the guy that funnels them into a room. Or just the guy who opens a cannister on the roof. It's much easier to distance yourself from what you know is happening.

The same principle applies to much lesser evils, like soldiers operating drones from a distance, or insurance workers denying coverage for life-saving treatment.

I've finally figured out an argument that convinces coding tech-bros that AI art is bad.

Got into a discussion today (actually a discussion, we were both very reasonable and calm even through I felt like committing violence) with a tech-bro-coded lady who claimed that people use AI in coding all the time so she didn't see why it mattered if people used AI in art.

Obviously I repressed the surge of violence because that would accomplish nothing. Plus, this lady is very articulate, the type who makes claims and you sit there thinking no that's wrong it must be but she said it so well you're kind of just waffling going but, no, wait-- so I knew I had to get this right if I was gonna come out of this unscathed.

The usual arguments about it being about the soul of it and creation fell flat, in fact she was adamant that anyone who believed that was in fact looking down at coding as an art form as she insisted it is. Which, sure, you can totally express yourself through coding. There's a lot more nuance as to the differences but clearly I was not going to win this one.

The other people I was with (literally 8 people anti-ai against her, but you can't change the mind of someone who doesn't want to listen and she just kept accusing us of devaluing coding as an art) took over for I kid you not 15 minutes while I tried desperately to come up with a clear and articulate way to explain the difference to her. They tried so many reasonable arguments, coding being for a function ("what, art doesn't serve a function?") coding being many discrete building blocks that you put together differently, and the AI simply provides the blocks and you put it together yourself ("isn't that what prompt building is") that it's bad for the environment ("but not if it's used for capitalism, hm?" "Yeah literally that's how capitalism works it doesn't care about the environment" she didn't like that response)

But I finally got it.

And the answer is: It's not about what you do, it's about what you claim to be.

Imagine that someone asks an AI to write a code and, by some miracle, it works perfectly without them having to tweak it---which is great because they couldn't tell you what a single solitary thing in that code means.

Now imagine this person, with their code that they don't know how it works, goes and applies to be a coder somewhere, presenting this AI code as proof that they're qualified.

Should they be hired?

She was horrified, of course. Of course they shouldn't be. They're not qualified. They can't actually code, and even if by some miracle they did have an AI successfully write a flawless code for every issue they came across that wouldn't be their code, you could hire any shmuck on the street to do that, no reason to pay someone like they're creating something.

When actual engineers use AI what they do is get some kind of base, which they then go though and check for problems and then if they find any they fix them, and add on to the base code with their own knowledge instead of just trying different prompt after prompt until they randomly come across one that works.

People who generate code like this don't usually call themselves engineers. They're people who needed a bit of code and didn't have the knowledge to generate it, and so used a resource.

And there you go. There are people who have none of the skills of artists, they don't practice, they don't create for themselves. When they feed the prompt to the AI they then don't just use the resulting image as a reference point for their own personal masterpiece, and if they don't like it they don't have the skills to change it---they simply try another prompt, and do that until they get something they like.

These people are calling themselves artists.

Not only that, these people are bringing the AI generated thing to interviews, and they are getting hired, leaving people who slave over their craft out of the job.

And that is the difference, for the tech bros who think AI art isn't a big deal.

what scott did to derek in the season 2 finale wasn’t a violation, it was poetic justice and derek’s well deserved comeuppance for being an inhuman, incompetent flop as a an alpha, werewolf and person. derek knew he deserved it, that’s why he accepted it and never held it against scott. not to mention that by inconveniencing derek for a few seconds, scott single-handedly defeated gerard and the kanima and saved derek’s and everyone’s life at the warehouse. plus, he made derek a better person

Look. I know you like Scott. But I need you to understand that what you’re saying is not only factually incorrect, but the implications of it are really hurtful.

Scott suffered a lot because he was bitten without being given a choice. Peter attacked him and turned him into something he never wanted to be. That is horrible for him, and I feel for him. What frustrates me so much is that he had his autonomy taken away from him, he suffered a huge injustice, and instead of protecting other people’s rights to choose, he decided to take away their choice the same way it was done to him. He shamed and insulted Erica and Boyd for their decisions to take the bite, completely negating their abilities to make their own choices. Derek didn’t attack them. He told them the risks, he explained what the bite was and what he expected back from them if he gave it to them. They asked for the bite. That was their choice, not Scott’s.

First off, Derek did not deserve what happened to him. A rape survivor who lost his entire family in a brutal fire that his rapist set and had his big sister murdered by his own uncle, did not deserve to have his body used without his consent to give what he considered a gift to the father of the woman who assaulted him, and it in no way made him a ‘better person.’ No. You need to be more careful about the things you say, because sexual assault survivors shouldn’t have to read horrible things like what you just typed out and sent to me. I should not have to read it.

Second, Scott’s motivation behind what he did was not justice. It was pride, a disregard for Derek’s bodily autonomy, and maybe even an actual urge to help with the Gerard situation. You could even add revenge to the list, since Gerard threatened Scott’s mom. And I have to point out, if Scott is really the amazing person that you’re claiming he is, then ‘poetic justice’ should never be something he is aiming for. Good people don’t do the thing that is the most ‘poetic.’ If Scott were as empathetic and kind as people claim he is or the show tries to tell us he is, he never would have done that to Derek, no matter how much he disliked him. There was no reason why he couldn’t have told Derek what he had planned and gotten Derek’s permission to do what he did. Scott kept the secret from him because he felt like he had the right to make decisions about Derek’s body without Derek’s consent. He did it because he wanted to be the one with the secrets for once. He outright admits that he kept the secret “Because you may be an Alpha, but you’re not mine.” He wanted to prove that Derek couldn’t control him, by hurting Derek and forcing him to give what Derek considered the greatest gift a werewolf could bestow, to the father of the woman who murdered Derek’s family. That is cowardly, childish, and apathetic, and it directly contradicts the idea that Scott is in any way True Alpha material.

Third, nothing he did was single-handed, because Derek isn’t an inanimate object or a tool. He’s a person, and without him, Scott’s plan wouldn’t have happened. Without Deaton, Scott’s plan wouldn’t have happened. Scott did not act alone.

Fourth, Derek didn’t accept what Scott did, and he did hold it against him. He felt so unsafe with Scott that he didn’t even tell him about the Alphas over the summer, didn’t ask for his help to find his Betas, because he didn’t think Scott could be trusted. Scott had already sold him out once and Derek had every right to believe Scott would do it again. (Which he then did at the end of S3A when he went to join Deucalion and left Derek unconscious in an elevator, in a hospital about to be swarmed with cops.)

Fifth, everything you are angry with Derek for, Scott did as well. So if you’re saying that Derek is ‘inhuman’ and a failure of an Alpha/werewolf/person, then you must be saying the same thing about Scott. Yes, Derek threw his Betas around and injured Isaac. Scott also threw Isaac into a wall twice (without even the pretense of training him) and dug his claws into Liam’s (I think it was him) neck without his permission. Yes, Derek chained his Betas up on the full moon. Scott abducted Liam and duct-taped him to his bathtub without explaining anything he’d done to him, and I’m pretty sure (though I don’t remember it well) that he was involved in Liam getting chained to a tree at one point. Yes, Derek kept secrets from his pack under the pretense of ‘protecting’ them. Scott also kept the truth about how Allison’s mom was bitten from her, letting her believe for months that Derek brutally attacked her mother for no reason, and lied to Kira about her losing control of her kitsune (though I also don’t remember a lot of that plotline). He also lied to Stiles about whether Lydia liked him, after making out with Lydia (who currently had a boyfriend) in the coach’s office, which is just a dick move, whether it was the full moon or not. Derek told Erica to seduce either Scott or Stiles? Scott told Allison to go on a date with Matt and KISS HIM. Derek scared Isaac away by shouting at him? Scott shouted at Allison for doing something she’d already told him she was going to do, and for telling her parents something she’d already warned him she was going to tell them, and told her to stay away from him. Derek shoved Scott against a wall? Scott shoved Stiles against a wall on his first moon! Oh, Scott was scared/frustrated/having trouble with control? Well, Derek’s sister had just died and Scott was about to expose the entire supernatural secret to a lacrosse field full of people.

Sixth, Scott didn’t defeat Gerard or the Kanima, and he definitely didn’t save the warehouse full of people. Gerard wasn’t dead after getting the bite from Derek. He had enough energy left to tell the Kanima to kill everyone in the room, and escape while no one was looking. The Kanima wasn’t defeated by Scott, it had Allison by the fucking throat and it only backed off when Stiles hit it with his goddamn Jeep and Lydia came out to face Jackson. Scott had nothing to do with that. Lydia is technically the one who saved everyone in the warehouse, and Stiles was her ride. Scott’s contribution was negligible. It was a time waster. He could have accomplished the exact same thing by just standing there and talking to Gerard until Stiles showed up with Lydia.

Seventh, Scott’s behavior was indeed a violation. And I don’t just mean the bite he forced Derek to give Gerard. He didn’t just get revenge on the guy who’d been rude to him and arguing with him for the last few months. He lied to Derek, over and over (while also avoiding ever technically lying, in much the same way Deaton often does, to avoid being caught out by his heartbeat). He learned Derek’s plans and where Derek was hiding, insinuated that he wanted to be part of Derek’s pack (knowing how important pack was to Derek), and outright yelled at Derek for supposedly keeping something from him (Which he wasn’t. Derek canonically wasn’t holding back any secrets from Scott at the time, unless you count the fact that Peter was alive, which Derek had every right to assume Deaton had already told him) all while he was the one working for Gerard. (That is literally gaslighting. Like, literally.) He exposed Derek and his pack to Gerard, feeding him information on the same kids that he insisted were ‘his responsibility’ that probably helped Gerard get ahold of Erica and Boyd to torture them. It was a violation of Derek’s consent. A violation of Derek’s trust, of Erica and Boyd and Isaac’s trust. And a violation of Stiles’ trust as well, since Stiles had no clue what Scott was doing.

You came to my ask box after seeing the various posts that I’ve made, with documented moments from the show and well reasoned arguments and frustrations with Scott McCall’s character. Are you seriously telling me you didn’t think I’d have a comeback?

Truly nothing is funnier than Xie Lian just losing his goody two shoes facade when Qi Rong is involved like when everyone else is an asshole or doing evil things Xie Lian just smiles patiently and thinks it’s none of his business but the second Qi Rong is around he is being force fed Xie Lians food and made fun of for being a wrath and getting served straight hands the second he says anything about Hua Cheng like truly some things are just for the family.