Let us begin with some sad news: the passing of Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel corporation, and the coiner of Moore's Law about transistor density over time. Before Intel, Moore worked at Fairchild Semiconductor with one of the co-inventors of the transistor, just so we all know what kind of computing and electronics pioneer he was.
A grand jury in New York has returned indictments for the previous administrator on matters relating to campaign finance and business fraud, which very much seems to evoke the methods by which authorities were finally able to arrest and convict Al Capone of a crime they could imprison him for. There are still several other juries weighing evidence for other possible charges as well, but this investigation in New York will go forward. Or, perhaps, the time-honored adage about how it is not the crime, but the cover-up, that gets someone in trouble, since many of charges in this case are related to falsification of records and fraud. And, as one might expect, those who seek to curry favor with the previous administrator (or who hope for cover for their own malfeasance) have stepped up their attacks and are trying their best to make the whole thing primarily a political action, rather than, say, necessary actions for the continued enforcement of the rule of law.
An organized group of persons intent on forcing their religious views on all others are trying to hide their influence and desire that all states pass legislation criminalizing gender-affirming care. As with so many things, places that currently have given the theocrats power (or where the theocrats have suborned or taken over the process of government and elections) are acting as the warning for what they intend to do with legislative, executive, and judicial power when they receive it.
Targeting the most visible signs of a changing world and changing views is a standard reactionary conservative tactic, more concerned with the fear of losing hegemony and having to accept that they are not the unquestioned masters of all opinions, public and private than with trying to effectively find and prosecute people who are doing harm to children. (If they were actually concerned with it, a significant number of Christian denominations should be under the microscope because of how many pastors and youth leaders turn out to be the "groomers" they desperately want to find in drag performers and queer people.)
Instead, they make threats that they will use the law to prosecute people for stocking books they don't want to exist, or harass and bully a library for following its policies (and the First Amendment), including stochastic terrorism threats, to the point where the library director is scapegoated and fired in the hopes that it will appease the crowd.
(The neutrality narrative will not save libraries. Nor, as you can see, will trying to remain above the fray, when the fray has been calculated specifically to be super-effective against those historical techniques. And because they often believe they can do better by offering specifically sectarian services. And those in charge aren't shy about wielding their power against who they see as people not getting with their program - Missouri's House, for example, chose to include no money for public and school libraries in their budget because private organizations are suing them over their overbroad laws that demand anyone talking about something they don't like, like queerness, be charged and fined or jailed.)
They are true believers, although they recognize that saying the quiet parts out loud makes them look dangerous, so they always have excuses conveniently available, like how it was about notification, rather than nudity, that caused such an uproar about viewing a famous sculptural nude.
We need a new gender paradigm, because the current one is still rooted in the idea that there is a singular true gender for everyone and the gender journey is about finding that. Which is not all that far away from the idea that gender is immutably tied to biological sex, honestly. Most people have a gender they strongly identify with on any given day, but to mistake a day for a lifetime is a bad idea. And our narratives (and laws) are constructed around the idea that someone who wants to transition has to demonstrate they really, really want to do it, and they want to do it in some way that alters their presentation in a physical way. As opposed to "today, perhaps, I am a girl, tomorrow I will be a boy, and on Friday, I refuse to have a gender."
( And the rest is behind the cut )
Last for tonight, the value of a lost tooth has increased significantly from when grownups were getting tooth money.
And very good reasons to prevent the adding of your works to AO3 collections, unless you're me who participates in exchanges that put things in collections...because it's still possible for someone to ad your works to a collection, then un-reveal the collection so your work gets hidden from anyone who wants to see it, because someone else decided your work deserved to be hidden. Yeah. The only way to stop this from happening is to refuse to allow your works to be added to collections and to revoke any permissions you have granted. So, I guess I trust most exchange admins that they're not going to revert all of their collections. It's still a good idea to have backups, though.
There is a process in place now where works holders are notified that their work has been un-revealed, but that doesn't help anyone who's orphaned their works, left the Web because of reasons (or Reasons), or otherwise isn't going to receive the notification or be able to do something about it.
In the absence of an easily-implementable technological solution that will not, apparently, be implemented, the other solution is a social one, where, as fen, we agree that we're not going to do petty shit like adding a work to a collection and then unrevealing it because we hate the work so much that we don't want anyone else to see it. You know, "ship and let ship," and "don't like? Don't read."
Given the current environment of book bans and "parental rights" and so many people believing they should have the individual power to dictate what everyone else is allowed to read and view, I don't have much hope that the social solution is going to get traction and widespread acceptance any time soon.
(Materials via![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
adrian_turtle, azurelunatic, boxofdelights, cmcmck, conuly, cosmolinguist, elf, finch, firecat, jadelennox, jenett, jjhunter, kaberett, lilysea, oursin, rydra_wong, snowynight, sonia, the_future_modernes, thewayne, umadoshi, vass, the ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
meta_warehouse community, and anyone else I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)
A grand jury in New York has returned indictments for the previous administrator on matters relating to campaign finance and business fraud, which very much seems to evoke the methods by which authorities were finally able to arrest and convict Al Capone of a crime they could imprison him for. There are still several other juries weighing evidence for other possible charges as well, but this investigation in New York will go forward. Or, perhaps, the time-honored adage about how it is not the crime, but the cover-up, that gets someone in trouble, since many of charges in this case are related to falsification of records and fraud. And, as one might expect, those who seek to curry favor with the previous administrator (or who hope for cover for their own malfeasance) have stepped up their attacks and are trying their best to make the whole thing primarily a political action, rather than, say, necessary actions for the continued enforcement of the rule of law.
An organized group of persons intent on forcing their religious views on all others are trying to hide their influence and desire that all states pass legislation criminalizing gender-affirming care. As with so many things, places that currently have given the theocrats power (or where the theocrats have suborned or taken over the process of government and elections) are acting as the warning for what they intend to do with legislative, executive, and judicial power when they receive it.
Targeting the most visible signs of a changing world and changing views is a standard reactionary conservative tactic, more concerned with the fear of losing hegemony and having to accept that they are not the unquestioned masters of all opinions, public and private than with trying to effectively find and prosecute people who are doing harm to children. (If they were actually concerned with it, a significant number of Christian denominations should be under the microscope because of how many pastors and youth leaders turn out to be the "groomers" they desperately want to find in drag performers and queer people.)
Instead, they make threats that they will use the law to prosecute people for stocking books they don't want to exist, or harass and bully a library for following its policies (and the First Amendment), including stochastic terrorism threats, to the point where the library director is scapegoated and fired in the hopes that it will appease the crowd.
(The neutrality narrative will not save libraries. Nor, as you can see, will trying to remain above the fray, when the fray has been calculated specifically to be super-effective against those historical techniques. And because they often believe they can do better by offering specifically sectarian services. And those in charge aren't shy about wielding their power against who they see as people not getting with their program - Missouri's House, for example, chose to include no money for public and school libraries in their budget because private organizations are suing them over their overbroad laws that demand anyone talking about something they don't like, like queerness, be charged and fined or jailed.)
They are true believers, although they recognize that saying the quiet parts out loud makes them look dangerous, so they always have excuses conveniently available, like how it was about notification, rather than nudity, that caused such an uproar about viewing a famous sculptural nude.
We need a new gender paradigm, because the current one is still rooted in the idea that there is a singular true gender for everyone and the gender journey is about finding that. Which is not all that far away from the idea that gender is immutably tied to biological sex, honestly. Most people have a gender they strongly identify with on any given day, but to mistake a day for a lifetime is a bad idea. And our narratives (and laws) are constructed around the idea that someone who wants to transition has to demonstrate they really, really want to do it, and they want to do it in some way that alters their presentation in a physical way. As opposed to "today, perhaps, I am a girl, tomorrow I will be a boy, and on Friday, I refuse to have a gender."
( And the rest is behind the cut )
Last for tonight, the value of a lost tooth has increased significantly from when grownups were getting tooth money.
And very good reasons to prevent the adding of your works to AO3 collections, unless you're me who participates in exchanges that put things in collections...because it's still possible for someone to ad your works to a collection, then un-reveal the collection so your work gets hidden from anyone who wants to see it, because someone else decided your work deserved to be hidden. Yeah. The only way to stop this from happening is to refuse to allow your works to be added to collections and to revoke any permissions you have granted. So, I guess I trust most exchange admins that they're not going to revert all of their collections. It's still a good idea to have backups, though.
There is a process in place now where works holders are notified that their work has been un-revealed, but that doesn't help anyone who's orphaned their works, left the Web because of reasons (or Reasons), or otherwise isn't going to receive the notification or be able to do something about it.
In the absence of an easily-implementable technological solution that will not, apparently, be implemented, the other solution is a social one, where, as fen, we agree that we're not going to do petty shit like adding a work to a collection and then unrevealing it because we hate the work so much that we don't want anyone else to see it. You know, "ship and let ship," and "don't like? Don't read."
Given the current environment of book bans and "parental rights" and so many people believing they should have the individual power to dictate what everyone else is allowed to read and view, I don't have much hope that the social solution is going to get traction and widespread acceptance any time soon.
(Materials via
adrian_turtle, azurelunatic, boxofdelights, cmcmck, conuly, cosmolinguist, elf, finch, firecat, jadelennox, jenett, jjhunter, kaberett, lilysea, oursin, rydra_wong, snowynight, sonia, the_future_modernes, thewayne, umadoshi, vass, the meta_warehouse community, and anyone else I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)
